Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 52

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[edit] Intro

The introduction read:

“Because these tests and the concept of race itself are widely deemed to be subjective, current mainstream science, sociology, medicine, and ethics have largely stopped supporting research which carries certain assumptions, namely: that race is more than a social construct and correlates to deeper genetic differences that genetics has some correlation with intelligence that intelligence can be measured that testing differences can be attributed to genetic factors rather than to environmental factors. Nevertheless some research continues which attempts to find links between these subjective areas, and likewise certain related research has been claimed by third parties to demonstrate or prove some link between genes and intellect.”

I have removed this because the

    • The tests are not widely considered to be subjective
    • It is well established that there is a link between genetics and intelligence (See Gray Thompson 2004) and rather than science ceasing to support such research it is becoming increasingly mainstream
    • Ditto re the fact that intelligence can be measured
    • Ditto re the fact that intelligence differences are attributable to genes rather than enviroment.

It is disturbing that the introduction to a Wikipedia article can be so wrong.Romper 21:33, 25 February 2007 (UTC)


“Because these tests and the concept of race itself are widely deemed to be subjective, current mainstream science, sociology, medicine, and ethics have largely stopped supporting research which carries certain assumptions, namely

Well, Jensen has claimed that his research has been "supressed" .... futurebird 21:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] the bottom line

WRN, please, you've worked on this series of articles for years, and you've done a great deal of work here. The article needs change, and you need to accept that. I believe everyone here who disagrees with your POV is more than willing to compromise, but simply reverting to an earlier state is not a compromise.

If you don't like how I moved a section, suggest an alternate move (as I did when you initially objected to moving test data to the end). If you don't like what got moved to a sub-article, suggest an alternate move to a sub-article, don't just blanket revert.

Strenuously objecting, and really meaning it just aren't going to work. We can use your help in crafting a better R&I article, but you have to be willing to give that help. --JereKrischel 08:55, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

There is no point merely to objecting to an edit, because no Wikipedian has a veto (this would violate our policy, nobody owns an article. If you object to an edit, try to understand what motivated the edit, and address the other editors' concerns, and propose alternatives or a compromise. Otherwise, you are not collaborating, just dictating. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:14, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

In all due respect JereKrischell, I think the reason you have so much trouble getting along with other editors on wikipedia is because you try to make too many changes too quickly. Give other editors a chance to absorb your changes. Don't just march in authoritatively and try to revolutionize long standing articles. I fear your approach is alienating experts in the field who no longer come here because they don't want to deal with all the stress. Wantednewlook

Ad hominem is not very interesting, especially not borderline incivility. I agree with JereKrischel and Slrubenstein. Please instead discuss usng factual arguments and suggest alternative texts.Ultramarine 17:02, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense. Going to the 3RR limit instead of to the talk page isn't WP:Consensus, it's mob rule. --W.R.N. 17:15, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

As per Wantednewlook: WRN, I'm more than happy to try and slow down edits, if you're willing to slow down as well - if I seem like I react quickly it is because you do as well - you made your first revert last night 34 minutes after my edit, your second revert 3 minutes after my edit, and your third revert 3 minutes after my edit.
I'm sorry Wantednewlook feels that we're trying to "revolutionize" long standing articles. I know WRN has years of experience with this article, and a lot of investment, but we're here to improve things, not to ruin things. It may not be moving in a direction everyone is comfortable with, but we are all trying to help.
3RR is simply a last resort, and I'm more than willing to keep that policy to the side if WRN willing to work on concrete compromises. Simply saying that things "can't work" and reverting isn't helping improve the article from its current state.
Please, we can use your help, WRN. The Race and intelligence (Research) article is probably a great place for you to start - maybe you can help organize that section with a little more acknowledgement of the various POVs of different researches, besides cut and dry "genetic" vs. "environment". I can send you the Brian Mackenzie article as a guideline if you wish to take a look at what I see as a good outline of the issue. --JereKrischel 17:46, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
JK, it is the organizational choice to have a Race and intelligence (Research) article that I think is a wrong move. I assume that isn't non-negotiable and that we were in fact in the middle of a discussion about organization when you made the change before consensus was reached. --W.R.N. 19:55, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
What alternative do you propose? --JereKrischel 23:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

In case that's not clear, here's what I wrote: what you've called "research" is like 200k of material and the bulk of what's written in books with straightforward titles like "race and intelligence". per the apa report you need to discuss phenotypic differences separately from the explanations, which are the two subarticle/section we have right now. making media-portryal a section of its own is debatable depending on how much there really is. fussing with history into/out of the "background" section is trivial i would think. --W.R.N. 06:15, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Then this edit: 07:54, 15 February 2007 WD RIK NEW ... (rv - i object strenously, see talk, don't edit war)

Which was reverted. This is not WP:Consensus. --W.R.N. 20:01, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

From the article: Consensus does not mean that everyone agrees with the outcome; instead, it means that everyone agrees to abide by the outcome.. How can we get you to agree to abide by any given outcome you may disagree with? --JereKrischel 23:22, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

My 200k guess was close, it's actually 183k [1]. The full length of the article is 310k.[2] So "research" is roughly 60% of the entire content of the article series. Presented with these figures, I don't see how it's unreasonable to expect debate on that kind of organization -- where 60% of the article content becomes a few paragraphs in the main article. --W.R.N. 20:17, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Will you give us a month to get, let's say, 150k of material for other articles before reverting? I think that simply measuring the existing size of the research articles doesn't necessarily make the point you want to make - given the level of depth spent quoting individual research, various data tables, etc, it seems that makes the research section particularly important to move to a summary style. Simply having 60% of the article content does not take into account the many redundancies and duplication in the current research articles, with copious citation and argument over esoteric points.
It sounds like you're arguing that R&I research should be the primary focus of the article and series, given the fact that you've spent 4 years building 200k of text on the topic. I think other editors and I have a problem with using that metric as a determinant of the primary focus of the article, since a) you've got a head start of several years, and b) it seems simply like a defense of the status quo. Can you help us find a compromise that will sufficiently open the focus of the series to alternative and significant POVs, but still give the prominence to the research topics you'd like to see showcased? --JereKrischel 23:20, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I used the article text count as evidence of what's been written, and my constant refrain is that you have to build the article from the bottom up, which means you organize actual article content, not hypothetical article content. Grow any missing article content and then return to the organization question if you like -- that's always been my primary suggestion. But to return to the organization question, I also made references to the contents of books and review articles that generally cover this topic. They likewise give the majority of the room to discussing research. I suggested an article outline that I think was an appropriate compromise. You suggested one in which discussion of research results and interpretations was mixed together and cut down to an impossibly diminutive size given its importance -- the mixing is a terrible idea for reasons I described above, in short the APA report and the WSJ statement recognized the need to keep these topics separate and so should we. I think my suggestion is the balanced one. In case you missed it, here it is again:

0. lead - 3-6 paragraphs
1. background
1.1. intelligence (main: IQ, intelligence)
     - 1-2 paragraphs
1.2. race (main: race)
     - 1-2 paragraphs
2. history (subarticle - R&I (history)) [put it where-ever you like]
     - 2-3 paragraphs
3. group differences in intelligence (subarticle - R&I (average gaps))
     - 2-3 paragraphs
4. explanations (subarticle - R&I (explanations))
     - 2-3 paragraphs
5. significance (subarticle - R&I (significance))
     - 2-3 paragraphs
6. controversy (subarticle - R&I (controversy) [if media portrayal is a real topic--i have doubts--then it could be its own section too]
     - 2-3 paragraphs
7. end material (subarticle - R&I (references) or switch to footnote ref system)

this is what we were debating before the edit war began --W.R.N. 01:24, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

i wrote this on the sub-article talk page, but it belongs here too: a single research article (e.g. Race and intelligence (Research)) is a bad idea for reasons I outlined on the main talk page. you need to have two articles (one for the phenotypic differences and another for theories that explain the differences). briefly-- the data and the interpretations need to be presented separately. in a scholarly science article, these would be called the "results" and "discussion" sections. both the WSJ and the APA report took this route in their presentations, and for good reasons. please trust me when I say that it is a vital measure to make NPOV presentation of this topic possible. --W.R.N. 02:04, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems that your "average gaps", "explanations" both belong in the "research" category - you can have a main article Race and intelligence (Research), and sub-articles of that Race and intelligence (average gaps) and Race and intelligence (explanations). I agree with you that both of those should be separate articles.
Significance seems to be part of "controversies". "media portrayal" certainly seems like a significant topic.
Is having two sub-articles of the Research sub-article sufficient to meet your requirement for two separate articles under research? --JereKrischel 02:33, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Regarding your statement, But to return to the organization question, I also made references to the contents of books and review articles that generally cover this topic. They likewise give the majority of the room to discussing research. - if you limit yourself to articles discussing R&I research, you'll of course get those results. Please examine the search results for "race and intelligence" on JSTOR or MUSE, or SAGE Journals for a clear indication that there is a whole host of material, not primarily focused on research. Futurebird has already done a great job of showcasing some of that material.
Again, I agree with you that "results" and "discussion" should be separate facets of "research", but I think we can still do that with sub-articles. Clearly, the existing Race and intelligence page is already too long, and we definitely need to move to more sub-articles. --JereKrischel 02:37, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Clearly, the existing Race and intelligence page is already too long, and we definitely need to move to more sub-articles. -- there's no difference between our two proposals on this matter.
There's no need for 3 levels of articles in this topic. It's a complication with no obvious benefits other than to make the presentation of research results as diminutive as possible. The notion that this is a diminutive aspect of the topic is beyond all imagining. NPOV requires proportional representation. The suggestion of selection bias in sources (if you limit yourself to articles discussing R&I research) is a nonstarter. Literature searchers which include mentions of media portryal do not demonstrate that research results are not a major concern. By any reasonable metric, it is the single most notable aspect of the topic. The fact that ~200k can be written about the subject is sufficient evidence of its importance beyond what you're suggesting.
The majority of the "controversy" is about the results of research. Should the controversy also be a sub-article of "research". Likewise, the significance of R&I is an extension of the research results. Should the significance article be a sub-article of research? Assuming the answer is yes, which only makes sense under your scheme. The only content in this article would be background, history, research, and media portryal (except the part about research). That's nonsensical.
There's absolutely no reason to have three levels and no reason not to have the nature of race differences as one main section, the explanations as a main section, and so on. There need to be individual 2nd tier articles about (a) the nature of the gap (b) explantions for the gap (c) the signficance of the gap (d) controversy over the topic, etc.
The example of media portrayal only demonstrates how bad an idea it is to organize content a priori. So far, the only synthesizing references in media portrayal (besides those that are about the portrayal of research) I see is unpublished masters thesis. There's a reason FB named the main section in that article "Examples" -- it's just examples he selected to build an argument for his favorite POV.
--W.R.N. 02:57, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
WRN, What would a better title be? I'm open to ideas. futurebird 03:11, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Unless you suggestion is actually nothing more than this, which seems like an odd suggestion for main article organziation:

0. lead - 3-6 paragraphs
1. background
1.1. intelligence (main: IQ, intelligence)
     - 1-2 paragraphs
1.2. race (main: race)
     - 1-2 paragraphs
2. history (subarticle - R&I (history)) [put it where-ever you like]
     - 2-3 paragraphs
3. research (sub-article R&I (research)
3.1. group differences in intelligence (subarticle - R&I (average gaps))
     - 2-3 paragraphs
3.2  explanations (subarticle - R&I (explanations))
     - 2-3 paragraphs
4. significance (subarticle - R&I (significance))
     - 2-3 paragraphs
5. controversy (subarticle - R&I (controversy)
     - 2-3 paragraphs
6. end material (subarticle - R&I (references) or switch to footnote ref system)

--W.R.N. 03:06, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Regarding ::There's no need for 3 levels of articles in this topic. It's a complication with no obvious benefits other than to make the presentation of research results as diminutive as possible.. Given the amount of detail already present, 3 levels is hardly excessive. In the original format, the main article was well over 100k, and there were sub-articles well over 100k. Without pruning vast amounts of information, additional levels are virtually a mathematic necessity. I would turn it around and assert keeping only 2 levels of articles in this topic has no obvious benefit other than to make the presentation of research results as dominant as possible.
Regarding The majority of the "controversy" is about the results of research. Should the controversy also be a sub-article of "research". This isn't quite true. The majority of the 'controversy' is about the history of eugenics, scientific racism and racial oppression, and assertions of "natural orderings" of races from inferior to superior. This has little to do with any results, and a LOT to do with interpretations of the results. Many on both sides agree with the raw data, but strongly disagree on how to interpret it. (IMHO, conclusions of meta-analyses aren't really "results" - I would use that term for raw data.)
Regarding The example of media portrayal only demonstrates how bad an idea it is to organize content a priori. If fb's a priori construction of media portrayal based on concrete examples is a problem, then I would expect you to apply the same critique to your own construction of the research section based on concrete examples as well. I think you're being hypocritical in your criticism of fb's contribs to media portrayal, since they're directly congruent to your exhaustive collection of every racialist R&I study and argument. I'd be interested to understand how you rationalize a difference between the two. --JereKrischel 04:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Like we're not speaking the same language. --W.R.N. 17:51, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Let me see if I can be more clear - You have just criticized fb for gathering multiple individual examples of the media portrayal of race and intelligence from primary sources as OR. You have built entire sections by gathering multiple individual examples of the arguments proposed regarding race and intelligence from primary sources. Why is your action not OR, but her action is? --JereKrischel 18:03, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
What FB did would be fine if there were secondary sources to back up outline of the construction. I noted there's a (unpublished?) master thesis mentioned as support of the presentation (1st sentence of the section), which is the right kind of publication, but probably not enough. The 2ndary sources are needed to guide the building of the text, so it's not a novel "thesis" being presented. What FB wrote would be fine if not for NOR, but I'm afraid that it's her own novel intellectual creation. --W.R.N. 18:40, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
The same problem will/could occur if the history section is written with a novel narrative. --W.R.N. 18:42, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Current suggestion

WRN, I believe our current suggestion lies along these lines:

0. lead - 3-6 paragraphs
1. background/history (subarticle - R&I (history))
     - 2-3 paragraphs
1.1. intelligence (main: IQ, intelligence)
     - 1-2 paragraphs
1.2. race (main: race)
     - 1-2 paragraphs
2. research (subarticle - R&I (research))
     - 2-3 paragraphs
2.1. intelligence test data (subarticle - R&I (test data))
     - 2-3 paragraphs
2.2. explanations (subarticle - R&I (explanations))
     - 2-3 paragraphs
3. media portrayal (subarticle - R&I (media portrayal))
     - 2-3 paragraphs
4. controversies (subarticle - R&I (controversies)
     - 2-3 paragraphs
5. end material (subarticle - R&I (references) or switch to footnote ref system)

Background and history seem identical, and "significance" seems a sub-article of "controversies". --JereKrischel 04:43, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Diagnostic: this appears to be product of a lay-man view of how science works. Research is an activity - a messy variegated activity. Science is the product of some research efforts. But knowledge of history can also be a product of research, etc.
The significance of group differences is a scientific question which is distinct from both the nature of the gap and the causes of the gap. Research produces science about the significance of group differences.
Moving around material in the main article doesn't change the content of the subarticles. Putting the nature and explanations of the gap into the same top-level category only confounds the two questions. If the subarticles themselves are too long, that's a separate issue to be addressed.
Controversy is about the extra-scientific controversy. Racism, utility, bias, policy implications, etc. It's a controversial article/topic -- if controversy just means controversy, then everything would be in that section.
Nothing about this topic makes sense except in light of the contemporary science. There would be no need to separately mention the history of R&I or to have a separate article on this at all there were no contemporary research results that indicated race differences in intelligence. The the pre-scientific history would just be a paragraph in an article on the history of racism. The collective effect of your edits and FBs recent edits are to obscure to the point of uselessness that there is a science which drives contemporary interest and attention to this subject. --W.R.N. 18:11, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
In case that rant doesn't translate fully, here's one more take-away: the "average gaps" section is more important than the "explanations" section in terms of the details it contains for the main article. the explanations section could be summarized in a few sentences, such as "some say environment, some say genetics, they all disagree a lot about every little detail." whereas the details in the average gaps section are, as you pointed out recently, something most scholars can agree on. there are lots of specific things that that can be said to be mainstream/consensus, and much fewer cases where a short summary is forced to just say there's a disagreement. the average reader will be satisfied with an explanations section that's considerably shorter than the one found in the article now, but needs a gaps section much longer than the one in the article now. --W.R.N. 18:36, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
JK, please forgive me for interjecting comments into your text as I'm going to do. I'm coming down with some kind of flu and this will probably be my final coherent comment till I get well.
Forgiven. Hope you feel better soon! --JereKrischel 08:08, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
The significance of group differences seems to be less of a scientific question, and more of a moral one - I think again, you're approaching this from the idea that Race and intelligence must mean Race and intelligence (Research). The significance of group differences is not solely a scientific question, it also speaks to our own value judgments and the value judgments of others. It may be a scientific question as to the magnitude, direction and cause of group differences, but significance is a subjective measure. You may be confusing it with statistical significance.
You're right to the extent that you've defined your subject, but we're not talking about the same thing -- look back into the history to see the content of the section in question. It's about the non-intelligence consequences of intelligence differences. Call it social and economic "consequences" if you prefer. Regardless, it's a question that's answered with the standard set of social science research methods, and is linked closely with the "practical validity" if IQ. --W.R.N. 01:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I beg to differ. You're taking it from the POV of racialists like Rushton - they've prejudged the question, and are asserting that race is the proper unit of division, and that because of that there are certain expectations - i.e., since Blacks are less intelligent as a whole, we should expect them to be less educated, less healthy, less wealthy, etc. You're trying to play off "significance" in a way I think is unwarranted. Perhaps you could find a different term to describe what you're trying to describe? After all, if you're just talking about non-intelligence consequences of intelligence differences, rather than specifically about non-intelligence consequences of racial intelligence differences, you're talking about two different things. One is a simply social science question perhaps, but the second, framed around the construct of "race" is tightly wound with value judgment. --JereKrischel 08:08, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Controversy should include some of the "scientific" controversy, insofar as there is some work claimed as "scientific" that is arguably not very scientific. I see this area as a place to discuss things like TBC and REB - both purporting to be "scientific", but in many ways more opinion pieces attaching values to research. --JereKrischel 18:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
Utility is about the utility of researching the question. Bias is about researcher bias. Racism is ... you get the point I hope. These are "extra-scientific" in that they extend beyond the subject of the science, extending into matters of values and matters of how the science fits into a social context. --W.R.N. 01:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Utility of research seems more of a controversy - a meta-thought about research. Bias is not only about researcher bias, but also about societal bias and the controversy around that. They extend well beyond the subject of research, and enter into values and social context even if divorced from scientific research.
I think what you may be leading up to is one of the critical issues with considering "race and intelligence" a scientific question - truth be told, nobody has come up with a truly consensus view on how to define the questions to be asked. --JereKrischel 08:08, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
The fact that you think that, Nothing about this topic makes sense except in light of the contemporary science, indicates to me that your view of this topic is very narrow. That being the case, Race and intelligence (Research) seems like a good place for you to start, with a more narrow focus. --JereKrischel 18:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
That's not going to work for the reasons I presented above. There are three main topics related to "research", and each needs to be presented in summary form in the main article. Making an additional "research" article would seem to be completely redundant when that is taken into account, unless you know of some form of presentation in that article that would differentiate it from the set of the three sections in the main article.
I think research as a sub-article of Race and intelligence is easy to find boundaries for - we can talk about the test data found, and the hypotheses generated. The controversy about how to interpret the test data, or if the hypotheses are even valid questions, seem like meta-thoughts and are much less about the research, and much more about the fundamental beliefs which drive the framing of the question. --JereKrischel 08:08, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Similarly, just because some group differences and gaps may be generally accepted, that doesn't make the conclusions based on them generally accepted, and I think that much of the excessive detail on cherry-picked studies supposedly demonstrating "gaps" isn't very useful in its current format. --JereKrischel 18:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
If you're arguing that summary style should be used to reduce the size of the main page, then I agree. You could find my calling for that kind of change with Ultramarine objecting in the history of this talk page.--W.R.N. 01:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Please accept that even before there was a single "scientific" study, or intelligence test, the topic of Race and intelligence loomed large in the minds of society. Also accept that beyond the attention of a small group of researchers and commentators, the topic of Race and intelligence is more about how it is portrayed by the media, and how it creates stereotypes that affect the way people treat each other. This is not just about contemporary science, but if you'd like to rename the article Race and intelligence (Contemporary research), perhaps that would satisfy your needs and ours. --JereKrischel 18:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
before -- yes, but i was talking counter-factually. it would be of no more than historical interest if (1) the science didn't exist and (2) actual differences in intelligence between races weren't of continued interest. I am dubious about claims that media portrayls of race and intelligence are a considerable subject of scholarly and public interest, but have already outlined how that can/must be demonstrated. my objection to it is merely conditional on meeting WP standards. --W.R.N. 01:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
WRN, I think you may be ignoring the POV that 1) the "science" that exists really isn't "science", it's more polemic (i.e., how many actual studies has Rushton or Jensen conducted, rather than simply aggregated?). We need to respect that POV, and asserting that every discussion of race and intelligence must of necessity be focused only on the "scientific" research is not going to allow that to happen. --JereKrischel 08:08, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
In case that doesn't translate fully, let's just say there is a science which drives some contemporary interest and attention to this subject, and there is also social context which is just as significant.
If we were in the year 1930, and writing this article under the auspices of a world that truly believed that races were essentialist, and that blacks were inferior, what would be more significant to put in the article, the test scores on IQ tests and a description of the statistical analysis which concluded blacks were inferior, or would it be about the social question of whether or not the science was driven by objectivity or as an excuse for white racism?
In many ways, this same context permeates the topic today, with the racialists a bit more toned down no doubt, but the social context is what looms the largest. Even Jensen was criticized more for his conclusions and proposed remedies than his data - and his conclusions about eliminating social programs may have been driven by his view of the research, but they weren't strictly science. --JereKrischel 19:02, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure I get the point of that, but I stand by my position that there are three aspects to what you describe as the "research" component of this topic, each of importance as a individual topic in the main article. If there's a point in having a "research" subarticle intermediate to the main article and the detailed "research" subarticles, it's lost on me other than as a POV fork to obfuscate the the three aspects of the research from the main article readers. This would be no more appropriate than to remove large sections of science from evolution or global warming because so much attention is given to the extra-scientific concerns related to those topics. --W.R.N. 01:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Evolution and global warming are fairly clear scientific areas. If this article was called Genetic hypothesis of racial differences, and there was an article called Environmental hypothesis of racial differences, you may have a point (as analogs to Evolution and Creationism. However, race and intelligence is not a theory, and therefore not specifically a scientific question.
I think what you propose to do is akin to an article Fossils and living creatures, where evolution and creationism as theories would be bandied about and argued right on the page. Clearly Fossils and living creatures is much broader than that, just as Race and intelligence is much broader than hypotheses as to the causes of observed group differences among arbitrary groups. --JereKrischel 08:08, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] White pupils make slower progress than other ethnic groups: Indian and Black-African

Children from ethnic minority backgrounds make more progress at secondary school than their white classmates, research found today.

The Bristol University study said the improvements were most dramatic in the crucial two years before teenagers take their GCSEs.

Ethnic minority families with high aspirations may particularly encourage their children to value education as a means for "getting on" in life, the researchers said.

The academics looked at results for all pupils in English secondary schools between the ages of 11 and 16.

They found children from all ethnic groups made more progress on average than white pupils.

Deborah Wilson, who led the Bristol team, said: "Some groups make very substantial gains, in particular Bangladeshi, Indian and Black African pupils.

"Pupils with Black Caribbean and Black Other heritage remain on average below their white peers at age 16 although the gap between them closes."

Children from most ethnic groups improved faster than white pupils at the vast majority of secondary schools.

The study found that cultural factors may help explain the differences in results between white pupils and children from ethnic minority groups.

"One often proposed is the importance of aspirations and values inculcated by families and reinforced by communities, notably the importance of education for getting on in life," Dr Wilson said.

"Our finding that a key part of the relative progress of minority ethnic groups comes in the most important, high-stakes exams lends some support to this view.

"Whether the differential aspirations and the importance ascribed to education are an ethnic difference or a feature more generally of (relatively) recent immigrants is beyond the scope of our study."

The research is reported in Research in Public Policy, the bulletin of the Centre for Market and Public Organisation.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=389384&in_page_id=1770 --84.131.184.128 17:06, 16 February 2007 (UTC)Caid

This isn't really related to "race and intelligence". It also seems to be looking at "rate" differences, as in mathematical ones. Maybe the actual study is more informative, but this "media version" of it it is anything but. Ernham 15:58, 16 February 2007 (UTC)


A new census report reveals that black Africans are now the most highly educated members of British society, with over 26% holding academic qualifications higher than "A" or college levels, in comparison with only 13.4% for white adults in British society. (SLD) http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=RecordDetails&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ488935&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=eric_accno&objectId=0900000b8003c118 --84.131.184.128 17:06, 16 February 2007 (UTC)Caid

This fact is mentioned in the model minority section. I'll look in to the paper to see if it has any useful data. futurebird 03:27, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Abstract and Link to study

I found the study!

Abstract: We exploit a universe dataset of state school students in England with linked test score records to document the evolution of attainment through school for different ethnic groups. The analysis yields a number of striking findings. First, we show that, controlling for personal characteristics, all minority groups make greater progress than white students over secondary schooling. Second, much of this improvement occurs in the high-stakes exams at the end of compulsory schooling. Third, we show that for most ethnic groups, this gain is pervasive, happening in almost all schools in which these students are found. We address some of the usual factors invoked to explain attainment gaps: poverty, language, school quality, and teacher influence. We conclude that our findings are more consistent with the importance of factors like aspirations and attitudes.

Sounds like support for "Ogbu Theory" I'm reading the paper now. Here is a link. The Dynamics of School Attainment of England’s Ethnic Minorities, Deborah Wilson, Simon Burgess and Adam Briggs (2005 version) futurebird 03:36, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Futurebird's summary of the study

In the UK, black children enter school at the same level as their white peers if one controls for a number of covariates. Black children then fall behind, even controlling for covariates, in the first two years of schooling, and stay behind until secondary school where they make greater progress then their white peers substantially, but not completely closing the gap.

"This suggests more systemic factors. One such often proposed is the importance of aspirations and values inculcated by families and reinforced by communities. This involves the importance of education in general, and the role of education in getting on."

The paper makes the case that "immigrant identity" and aspiration play a big role for these children, but it says little about the reason for the steady decline upon entering school. It would seem that for these minorities going to school seems to somehow makes them dumber relative to their white peers! Why is that? There's a question I'd love to read more about.

Where and how shall we use this? Probably in the section on "model minorities"

Anyone know of any studies about the resion for the "dumbing effect" of UK schools on minorities? futurebird 04:03, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

futurebird, be wary of biases. when whites progress more quickly, the schools are making minority students "dumber" relative to white students, and we must have an explanation! a study! but when minority students progress more quickly, there's no problem at all. the immigrant children are "aspiring" and have better values than lazy old whitey.
i'd imagine the case is something like this; here in the UK schools, like many US schools, don't know what to do with students that have reached a 10th grade level of understanding. the students continue to go to class and learn things here and there, but for most not in ways that show up on standardized tests. take a look at the SAT one of these days, nothing you learn past 10th grade is useful on it. so the white students plateau while the government wastes their time and in the meantime the other students catch up.
and why do the immigrant students fall behind early on? knowledge and capabilities grow geometrically. if you know x today, you won't know x+1 next year, you will know 2x, then 4x, then 8x. imagine the infant who takes two years to learn his first word; will he know only two words by the time he is four? white students enter at a higher level, so of course they progress at a higher level, until they reach the limits of the pathetic UK schools.
lastly, don't take these studies too seriously. academics needs jobs and grants, but they can't go around saying standardized tests are useless and out of the other side of their mouths tell us about their "interesting results" using data from standardized tests and why they should be given more funding to "study the issues more deeply".


I added the study to a sub-article here. Let me know what you think (or just change it if you think it could be worded in a better way.) futurebird 17:39, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] In defense of WRN

This comment is mostly to fb and jjj, but it holds for anyone - WRNs recent revert seems justified. The point of creating sub-articles for research, and under that explanations and test data, is not to denigrate or obscure the topic or the hereditarian POV. Selectively pulling only research that refutes the hereditarian explanation and putting it into the main article really isn't appropriate. Probably the best thing to say when developing the paragraphs for the Race and intelligence (Research) sub-article intro is to assert that there is great debate, and nobody really knows the answer. Let's leave specifics, on both sides, in the sub-article.

The goal of this reorganization is to open the article's focus, not to filter the existing research article in a selective way to promote a certain POV. I think much of the problem was that when we had an article at this level, with significant detail pro/con, it was awfully hard to find a good balance. Let's work on making sure our intros to the sub-articles comply with WP:NPOV, and don't prejudge the issue. I'm sure we can fight on the sub-articles all we want, but let's do our level best to present the fact here that there is contemporary research, with various positions, but no definitive answers...it's probably the only statement we can all really agree with. --JereKrischel 19:25, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

how many articles with the title Race and intelligence (X) have been created in the last day? this is why i suggested putting all of the article content into a single place for consideration. much more than writing text, organization requires cooperation and careful thought. --W.R.N. 01:29, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

We have been cooperating, and carefully thinking. I don't think your attempt at merging all the articles back into one main article really went all that well technically, given the problems it caused with peoples' browsers and their ability to successfully edit the pages. The current path we're on, organizing sub-articles, seems to be working fairly well, and had reduced the page length and opened the door to significant POVs very well. The sub-pages still need a lot of work, but at least they are in cow-sized chunks instead of elephant-sized chunks. --JereKrischel 05:28, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please be careful!

WRN, The trouble is, that in the process of reverting you deleted some new material I'd added. I've added it back. This is the first time this happened tonight. I've left a message on your talk page about the 2nd time it happened... It's a little worrisome to me, we need to be more careful with these massive edits. That goes for you WDK, me and JK. futurebird 02:20, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

sorry, i didn't "revert" i copied it from the history. --W.R.N. 02:41, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Okay. that's odd, some things that I added disappeared in both cases. But, I know it's easy to make a mistke. So, I'm just saying let's all be careful. futurebird 02:49, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Sure. I assumed the material was deleted, so went back to the last instance I knew of. --W.R.N. 02:51, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New sections?

Are these all of the new ones Jere?

futurebird 01:59, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

JK, please let me know if this list is complete...futurebird 02:20, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I think I understand what you intended to do. It may have seemed to be an easy and good move, but it was actually an easy and poor move. You probably didn't realize it because it is only really obvious if you're familiar with all of the text in all of the articles. (Why I was trying to make everyone look at all of it at once.) The good move is going to be a lot harder, but I don't think being hard justifies taking a sub-standard route. I'll explain that in a less cryptic manner later. --W.R.N. 02:45, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Ownership_of_articles#Ownership_examples - At the other extreme, the owner may patronize other editors, claiming that their ideas are interesting but that they lack the deep understanding of the article necessary to edit it. I submit to you that our disagreement has nothing to do with who is more familiar with the existing articles, but represents justifiable rationale on both our sides. --JereKrischel 07:42, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Reason #1: the content of Race and intelligence (average gaps among races) is actually not much more detail than what grew up in the main article. For summary style, the main article content should be merged into Race and intelligence (average gaps among races) and replaced with a new shorter summary. Moving it to Race and intelligence (Research) was easier, but just resulted in massive duplication between the two subarticles.
Reason #2: Race and intelligence (test data) is bound to become an exercise original research, and will be a duplication with what should be in Race and intelligence (average gaps among races) or the achievement gap article.
Reason #3: ... --W.R.N. 03:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Huh? Was this to me or to JK? futurebird 02:50, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't know whos idea it was to create the articles, so probably both. --W.R.N. 02:52, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Test data to me seems significantly different than "average gaps among races", although probably the better thing to do is simply merge everything to test data. "Average gaps among races" seems to prejudge a lot of the fundamentals. --JereKrischel 06:23, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
I made "test data" the other two are JK's I've been editing the content at these new articles, so if for some reason we end up restoring the content, we need to copy it from there to bring it back in... rather than just restoring to an old version of the article in the history of the main page. I've added a lot of content, and I hope that it won't be lost in the shuffle. We need to be careful about this. futurebird 02:57, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Gotcha. Whatever the newest version is, can you copy that to the main article, overwriting what's there? --W.R.N. 03:03, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Wait... we're not merging again... are we? futurebird 03:14, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
It my contention is that the organizational scheme chosen was bad. I started outlining that above. I'm afraid that's all the energy I've got left right now. --W.R.N. 03:19, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New article layout

As per the suggested outline:

0. lead - 3-6 paragraphs
1. background/history (subarticle - Race and intelligence (history))
     - 2-3 paragraphs
1.1. intelligence (main: IQ, intelligence)
     - 1-2 paragraphs
1.2. race (main: race)
     - 1-2 paragraphs
2. research (subarticle - Race and intelligence (Research)
     - 2-3 paragraphs
2.1. intelligence test data (subarticle - Race and intelligence (test data)
     - 2-3 paragraphs
2.2. explanations (subarticle - Race and intelligence (explanations)
     - 2-3 paragraphs
3. media portrayal (subarticle - Race and intelligence (Media portrayal)
     - 2-3 paragraphs
4. controversies (subarticle - Race and intelligence (Controversies)
     - 2-3 paragraphs
5. end material (subarticle - R&I (references) or switch to footnote ref system)

--JereKrischel 07:47, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

is this a suggestion? --W.R.N. 09:58, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

This is a comprehensive list of sub-articles recently created, as per an earlier suggestion we are trying to implement. --JereKrischel 05:24, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] does that make sense?

i moved stuff around, created, sub-articles, tagged others for merging, etc. please review the structure of what's done and let me know what you think. i think we can all agree that the actual summary sections are in need of change. i'm hoping we can figure out the organization first. --W.R.N. 04:09, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

It seems on first glance to be fine. We still have all of JK's sections right? I'll say more later. futurebird 06:49, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


On second glance this is NOT ok. What happened to the "direct/indirect" distinction? Brian Size isn't a "direct measure!" futurebird 06:54, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I think you deleted some of my content again...futurebird 06:54, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


Okay, now I see that you just used and old version for this new page called "significance" I don't understand the purpose of this page? When you need content from the research section could you use what I have there? I have made extensive edits to that page and it bothers me that you keep using older versions. futurebird 07:31, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Two Curve Bell diagram (Two Curve Bell.jpg): POV and Verifiability

I see this diagram as "proving" to normally educated readers that a big difference exists between Blacks' and Whites' intelligence. And, given the title of the article in which this diagram appears, a normal reader will go away with the impression (whether true or false) that the difference in inteligence is due to Race. But the debate about correlation between R & I is a major area within this article, not a universally accepted fact. I think the prominence in the lead and excellent clarity of the diagram leads to problems in balance for this article.

Also in line with WP:Verifiability I request a cite for the data presented in the graphs. I would like to be able to check how the data was "idealised". The present cite leads to a WP article with no mention of Blacks and Whites, making this diagram open to deletion. SmithBlue 04:55, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Blue, I've checked the data in the graph. They are from the WAIS IQ test from 1981. It is a major problem that the data are some 26 years old.
I request a cite. I wouldnt let a numerical table, or a statement in words, of data go without a cite and I treat a graph the same way. Especially with it being . A reader needs to be able to find out how it has been "normalised" "idealized". SmithBlue 05:30, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I think you make a good point about "undue weight" I think this graph should be in the section on reserch. The best, bet would be to add other kinds of graphs from other studies, since IQ is not the only way to look at intellegence. futurebird 05:07, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


The gap - the 2001 standardization of the WJ III gives a gap of 1.05 sd and the 1997 AFQT gives a gap of 0.97. The gap shown in the top graph is 0.97 sd. Flynn and Dickens (2006) estimate the gap among adults (24 yrs old) at 1.1 sd. The 1996 APA report: "The relatively low mean of the distribution of African-American intelligence test scores has been discussed for many years. Although studies using different tests and samples yield a range of results, the Black mean is typically about one standard deviation (about 15 points) below that of Whites"[3]
Am I missing something? My understanding of WP:Verifiabilty is that a reader can go to the source of claims/statements/data presented in articles. To this end a cite is provided. I am sure both futurebird and W.R.N. are aware of this. But so far we seem to be at cross purposes. If either of you could point out why a cite for this data should not be provided I would apppreciate it. Or if I appear to be making an erroneous assumptions please point them out. If a fellow editor wants time (days) to find a cite then please say so. SmithBlue 06:43, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
There are no other widely used and highly reliable measures of intelligence than IQ and similar tests. The 1996 APA report: "The most influential approach, and the one that has generated the most systematic research, is based on psychometric testing. This tradition has produced a substantial body of knowledge, though many questions remain unanswered." [4] --W.R.N. 05:32, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


"There are no other widely used and highly reliable measures of intelligence than IQ and similar tests."
Are you certain of this?
The 1996 APA report: "The most influential approach, and the one that has generated the most systematic research, is based on psychometric testing. This tradition has produced a substantial body of knowledge, though many questions remain unanswered."
Not exactly and enthusiastic endorsement, they are basically saying... most people have done it this way so far, and it's produced a lot of numbers.
Please don't try to discourage our research, WRN. It isn't helpful.futurebird 05:47, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Are you certain of this? - In short, yes. Please don't try to discourage our research -- I certainly don't mean to discourage research, but the original commenter raised a number of issues that needed to be addressed which I could answer. --W.R.N. 06:25, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Move bell curves

Back to the main point here! The graphic at the top gives undue weight to the idea that blacks are inferior to whites. It's easy to mis read it that way. Let's move it to the "research" section of the main article and the top of the page on "research". Discuss.futurebird 06:45, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Moving the graph from the lead would be progress towards balance. Presenting that data (Two Curve Bell) in such an effective form seems to require that other POVs in that area are presented equally effectively. If similar graphs can be found for other POVs then graph could be placed with them wherever suitable, wrt content. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SmithBlue (talk • contribs).

(1) I don't understand SmithBlue's comment. (2) I think either of these figures would be an improvement in the lead: four curves schematic the four curves demonstrates that the issue isn't B/W. the schematic is more demanding to understand, which may be a problem, but it does slow down the reader to make them think. the current graphic is better than these two in being simple and easy to understand - but the caption should be supplemented with comments about heterogeneity, overlap, range, etc. (3) not having a figure in the lead to graphically explain that the distributions are overlapping and that there is great heterogeneity in each group would be a great loss. the #1 misconception is that different averages mean that all members of one group are "inferior" to all members of another group. --W.R.N. 07:41, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Why do we need this image in the first place? Could it more appropriately be moved to the Race and intelligence (Research) article? --JereKrischel 08:11, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree that the present figure challenges the #1 misconception about statistical comparisons between groups. Unfortunately without an adequate citation and access to the source I can't tell whether it challenges or promotes misconception #2 - that only the single named factor (Race) accounts for the differences between the 2 groups. (The graph shows that "idealized" data for 1981 has Blacks mean at ~ 86 and Whites mean at ~ 105. And the data has been idealised. How? A citation is necessary.) SmithBlue 08:44, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


If you're looking for curves that are presented in this format, WRN will give you Gottfredson as a source. Gottfredson is hardly mainstream. You should look at the way this she has the curves labeled in this publication. Social Consequences--It's pretty silly. I think that we should use Gottfredsons labels on this graph. It would do a lot to highlight the kind of theories this sort of things is used to support. It would add context.
For awhile, I thought it made more sense to tie this directly to the WAIS from 1981. But I see, now, and perhaps this is your point, Blue, the 1981, WAIS never had curves like these, it's just raw data-- so, perhaps, we 'must use Gottfredson as the source for these curves. IF we do that then I think we need to add all of silly labels Gottfredson, and we can't possibly use this as the lead graphic. It would need to go in the research section... at best. futurebird 15:14, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the cite. My present understanding is that the 2 bell curves in the R&I article are unadjusted for other factors? If so: These raw data curves appear irrelevant to this article. The presentation of raw data that takes no account of the effects of any other of the factors proved by psychology to effect IQ scores would likely mislead the non-statistically trained section of the readers. They promote misconception #2 - that the single named factor (Race) accounts for all of the differences between the 2 groups.
If IQ data is valid then the curves that remain after adjustment for all other known variables do appear relevant to this article. If we dont use adjusted data we indicate a lack of faith in psychological science which we relied on for the validity of the IQ data in the first place. SmithBlue 16:40, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

SmithBlue, I agree that it would be helpful to present adjusted curves, but I do not have a source that would let me create such a graph without doing "original research." Can you suggest a source?

I know that the gap can be reduced to 3 IQ points or 0.2 SD if adjusted for a series of social and economic factors. What I do not know are the SDs for the black and white curves once adjusted. I imagine, due to the smaller sample size the SD for the black curve will be a bit smaller, making the curves very very close in appearance. (In the current graph the bright yellow and bring red section would be thin slivers. The bright red section would be slightly wider that the bright yellow section)

I would like to see curves like these presented, but I just don't have enough data to make them without trying to do my own regression. futurebird 17:15, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

That's a confounding of the question of phenotypic differences with their causes. There's a reason that all major sources on this topic avoid that confounding (e.g. the APA report, WSJ report, many boooks). If two groups are of different average height, they're not less phenotypically "different" if the cause of the gap is nutrition, genetics, or divine intervention. --W.R.N. 20:11, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Than can be less phenotypically different if there are different definitions of the groupings. Note that the APA report avoids this confounding of "race" with "group" explicitly. --JereKrischel 06:17, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Source? --W.R.N. 10:01, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

This article title includes "race". The APA article W.R.N. cited to me[[5]] includes the following: (the) "correlation between "socio-economic status" (SES) and scores on intelligence tests is well known (White, 1982)." Which means that, by presenting the raw data without adjusting for SES, this graph presents data comparing USA Blacks and Whites IQ scores - not, as would be appropriate, data showing differences between races. (Cause if it was differences between races we want to show we would remove other factors from the data. To take W.R.N. average height example - if we want to write about height and race we would not look at raw data comparing half starved Eritreans with fully nourished Dutch people. Instead we might compare fully nourished Eritreans and fully nourished Dutch and half starve Eritreans with half-starved Dutch. This might remove the nutrition factor from the data leaving us with a view of height and race.) The present graphic is irrelevant to this article and its inclusion here is highly misleading. Substituting Godfredson(Sp?) graph does not improve this in way. SmithBlue 09:56, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Read the whole APA report. No causal factor has been demonstrated to account for any of the gap in a fashion that it could be said to be known to be a cause. All causal hypotheses listed are speculative. --W.R.N. 10:01, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I read nothing justifying the presention of the whole gap as the product of race. Which is what the 2 bell curve graphic does. What I do read is couched in terms of "ethnic groups". I have not got a source for material that states that differences between ethnic groups IQ is solely due to race. If we had that material then presenting the current 2 bell curves as showing differences due to race would be justified. Without it we would be doing WP:OR. SmithBlue 10:35, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Still more problems with these curves

Bell curves with the the source matched to the IQ scale, showing that these curves are still not correct.
Bell curves with the the source matched to the IQ scale, showing that these curves are still not correct.

I was going to add in the labels, but in doing so I discovered that these curves are not the same as those in the source. Why is that? futurebird 16:21, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


I also don't really understand why the curves are the same size when the population sizes are different. I know we been through this before, but help me out here. What is the rationale for making the curves the same size in the first place? I think this is one of the reason we have so much trouble finding a source with curves like these other than Gottfredson... there is something odd and novel about the presentation of her curves... correct me if I'm wrong here. futurebird 17:29, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I believe the curves are the same size because they show the distributution in percent of each group. --Kevin Murray 18:09, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
It looks like these curves have been manipulated to make it seem as if a substantial portion of black people are, well, retarded. I mean, the paper where these curves came from is just plain filled with right-wig assumptions and then, on top of that the version that WRN NEW posted is off even more in the direction of making black people seem dumb. I'm shocked. How do people think they can get away with this kind of nonsense? Thanks futurebird for getting all nit-picky and comparing the curves, you've uncovered something very disturbing! JJJamal 17:47, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
This is just rehashing the same argument. There is nothing new here that hasn't been discussed before. I've proposed taking this out or moving it down from the top. Either get rid of it (with my support) or stop complaining about it. It demonstates the concept of the bell distribution. If the variances between the distributions is accurate then the graphic is appropriate. If the variance is wrong or the centers of the bell(s) are in the wrong place, that can be fixed by moving the bells or shifting the labels. --Kevin Murray 18:09, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Kevin Murray is correct. The charts plot the means from the '81 WISC normalization, but use 15 as the SD to simplify things. The net effect of ignoring SD or using some other adult normalization sample is negligible because the point of the curves are to demonstrate the distributional nature of the differences. --W.R.N. 19:58, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Breakdown of current articles and sub-articles

What is the point of this new sub-article article Race and intelligence (significance)? futurebird 15:55, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

JK thinks "significance" is a "controversy" topic. I think it's a "research" topic. Either way, it's a big chunk of text that needs its own sub-article. I'll move it to a top level entry to circumvent the categorization debate.
Having "research" and "controversy" articles seems redundant with the sub-articles they contain. It seems to be an unnecessary complication. --W.R.N. 20:01, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree with JK, if you look on the comments page of the new article you'll see that userPOM is also wondering what the point of Race and intelligence (significance) could possibly be. Please try to work with all of us, WRN. This new sub-section is confusing. I don't think it works.futurebird 20:20, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, here's my frame of reference. Before any reorganization started, that was a top level section in the main article with all of the content currently found in the main article. Assuming that all of the text and material go somewhere, the obvious place is its own sub-article. --W.R.N. 20:22, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

fyi, i think they've been missed, but i put merge tags all over the place. "research" and "controveries" should be dissolved into their constituent subarticles. --W.R.N. 20:38, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

everyone seems really confused, so i'm just going to try to execute my proposed merges so you can see what i mean. --W.R.N. 20:46, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Please don't do this. There is no consensus for this. futurebird

[edit] iq and the wealth of nations criticism don't apply to Lynn (2006)

my edits were reverted by FB. from my edit summary, here is the reason for the edits: those criticisms are about the single-study scores used to esimate national IQ in IQatWoN; don't apply. the criticism is about a detail of IQatWoN that doesn't map to RDI. --W.R.N. 20:50, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

That's no reason to delete sourced information. futurebird 21:09, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
It's OR to say that criticism of book X applies to book Y just because the author is the same and the topic is similar. The criticisms may or may not apply, in fact they do not. --W.R.N. 21:16, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I'll work on restating this. futurebird 21:36, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

the article says "Lynn's datasets are criticized as being unrepresentative". But the cited article is talking about *single studies* in Africa, Central America, etc., not the *dozens of studies* of many samples from developed countries -- the only ones shown in figures in our article. i don't know of any criticism that *those* samples are overall unrepresentative of the populations they are taken from. most of those populations are discussed in the APA report, although its now a bit dated - a lot of the studies are post 1990. --W.R.N. 22:24, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cooporation and respect for others

  1. WRN reverted page over multiple I made changes causing a few paragarphs I'd added to be lost in the process.[6] Had to restore the new things I added by hand.
  2. Told WRN about restoring to older version without African information: [7]
  3. WRN made a new page Race and intelligence (significance) and used and older version of the section on high-achieving minorities even after we talked about "being careful" on the talk main talk page. [8]
  4. [9] deleting referenced criticisms.

Currently, WD is ignoring the concerns of JK myself and others and destroying the Race and intelligence (Controversies) and Race and intelligence research articles to create his own organizational scheme. Given his pattern of ignoring things that I've added to articles... (see above) This makes me very unhappy. I don't think WD is listening to others or trying to cooperate. He's just restructuring an article ONE DAY after JK and I tried a new structure. This gave us no chance to even try our plan out. There was no consensus for these changes. I feel like I'm being steam rolled by an individual with POV point to make.futurebird 21:07, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

There was no consensus for the other version either. Look at the net effect of this one and report what you like or don't like as I did. If you feel compelled to make further changes, do so. If it weren't so difficult, I would add a request for mediation. --W.R.N. 21:14, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
(comment deleted)
In what ways have I "run amok",Kevin ? Please tell me. And where did your comment go? futurebird 21:25, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
  • FB I said something in frustration which I quickly reverted as I thought it was an overstatement and not pertinent to you alone. However, I feel that this whole process has devolved away from order and the article is now a bloated debate. I don't think that any consensus is being reached before major changes are being made. I think that this page should be protected again and edits made by a neutral editor based on recognized consensus. --Kevin Murray 21:34, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Someone less intimidated by the nasty sounding form should submit a request for formal mediation for the organization question. Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation If no one does it, I'll eventually do it, but it looks like it would take a lot of time to do correctly. --W.R.N. 22:00, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I think this would be a good idea. futurebird 22:12, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
WRN, you reverted my idea, and I was willing to live with that, becuse JK explained it to me...--then you undid JK's idea-- so, now it seems like you won't take input from anyone. futurebird 21:28, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I want input from everyone. But my input was, in my view, previously ignored. --W.R.N. 22:00, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
I accepted the reversion you made on my organization for the page. I thought we could move forward from there with some middle ground. futurebird 22:12, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
Maybe it's my cold, but the language we're using to describe things doesn't seem to be effective. Could you spell things out for me if you get a chance? --W.R.N. 22:19, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
WRN, again, I ask you, what will it take for you to accept these changes that you don't agree with? Consensus is not unanimity, it is derived from the willingness of all parties to accept an outcome - what will make you accept the outcome of a sub-article for research, and sub-sub-articles under that? Is formal mediation acceptable to you? Or is this something you'll drive all the way up to arbcom? --JereKrischel 05:23, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Bad ideas are bad ideas. I see no evidence that you've grappled with and considered my suggestions and at least some very strong evidence that you have not. Formal mediation is fine. --W.R.N. 09:02, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Please accept that I have grappled with and carefully considered your suggestions and position. I look forward to formal mediation, and hope the straw poll is a good start to get interested parties involved. --JereKrischel 09:37, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
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