Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 20

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new publications

Richard Lynn has a new book

Lynn, R. (2005). Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis. Augusta, GA: Washington Summit Books. ISBN 1-59368-020-1. 

Interestingly, Amazon knows nothing about this book, and Google has never heard of the publisher. Do we really want to give so very much weight to hard-line white-supremacists who publish on vanity presses? Followup: The Library of Congress and NYC and Boston libraries also do not know this book. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 08:34, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
AFAIK it's not published yet, but I assume that this is a review work and not a work of original data collection, so at least the IQ values are probably good. We'll be able to see for sure when the book comes out. --Rikurzhen 08:39, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Ah, it does appear that David Duke[1] and Philip Rushton[2] have nice things to say about it. And the vanity press seems to follow publication of portions in the neo-Nazi journal Mankind Quarterly[3]. Still, it definitely makes me feel dirty even to paste those URLs. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 08:45, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
Why don't you write an article about your fascinating emotional response? --Scandum 03:45, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Lulu, Race Differences in Intelligence: A Global Perspective is a journal article written by Richard Lynn and published in the Spring 1991 issue of Mankind Quarterly. Notice that that article has a different subtitle than the 2005 book in question. David Duke has not reviewed the 2005 book. The David Duke "review" that you linked to is actually a reprint of the 1991 article by Richard Lynn. Your Upstream link (your third link) is also a reprint of that article. --hitssquad 14:12, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
It would indeed be interesting to know if the difficulty Lynn seems to have had trying to publish this with a real publisher (I assume he has at least tried), are based on the quality of the material. I hope we all here agree that the other possibility (tacit censorship) would be a lot scarier than the hereditarian hypothesis.Arbor 09:06, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
It's hardly censorship if legitimate publishers don't jump at the chance to publish neo-Nazi tracts. I don't exactly see University of Iowa Press or Penguin Books pushing The Turner Diaries or Aryan Brotherhood diatribes either. Trying to compare Lynn to any actual scientist pretty well strains at the bounds of credulity. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 05:34, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
That sounds like the hyperbole that we know and love in this field. --Nectar 06:38, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
That David Duke link is a re-posting of an article Lynn published in Mankind Quarterly in 1991 ("Race Differences in Intelligence: A Global Perspective," rather than "Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis"). Jensen had difficulty finding a publisher for his The g Factor, which seems to suggest this isn't necessarily an a priori strike against Lynn's book. (thanks for the links) Nectar 14:46, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Here's a summary of the IQ data:[4]

  • East Asians (Chinese, Japanese and Koreans) -- 105
  • Europeans -- 100
  • Inuit or Eskimos -- IQ 91
  • South East Asians -- IQ 87
  • Native American Indians -- IQ 87
  • Pacific Islanders -- IQ 85
  • South Asians and North Africans -- IQ 84
  • sub-Saharan Africans -- IQ 67
  • Australian Aborigines -- IQ 62
  • Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert and Pygmies of the Congo rain forests -- IQ 54

I found this bit interesting:

He argues that Blacks in the United States experience the same environment as Whites in regard to the determinants of intelligence, such as nutrition, because Blacks and Whites have had the same average height since World War I. He presents evidence that Blacks in the southern states have very little White ancestry and have an average IQ of about 80, and he proposes this be adopted as the genotypic IQ of Africans. Because the average IQ for Blacks in sub-Saharan Africa is about 67, he takes this 13 point difference as the amount due to the adverse cultural conditions, principally poor nutrition and health, found on that continent.

Also worth noting is an article in press on climate and IQ:

Templer, D. I. and Arikawa, H.. "Temperature, skin color, per capita income, and IQ: An international perspective". Intelligence In Press, Corrected Proof. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2005.04.002. 

Abstract:

The impetus for our study was the contention of both Lynn and Rushton that persons in colder climates tend to have higher IQs than persons in warmer climates. We correlated mean IQ of 129 countries with per capita income, skin color, and winter and summer temperatures, conceptualizing skin color as a multigenerational reflection of climate. The highest correlations were − 0.92 (rho = − 0.91) for skin color, − 0.76 (rho = − 0.76) for mean high winter temperature, − 0.66 (rho = − 0.68) for mean low winter temperature, and 0.63 (rho = 0.74) for real gross domestic product per capita. The correlations with population of country controlled for are almost identical. Our findings provide strong support for the observation of Lynn and of Rushton that persons in colder climates tend to have higher IQs. These findings could also be viewed as congruent with, although not providing unequivocal evidence for, the contention that higher intelligence evolves in colder climates. The finding of higher IQ in Eurasians than Africans could also be viewed as congruent with the position of Diamond (1997) that knowledge and resources are transmitted more readily on the Eurasian west–east axis.

--Rikurzhen 07:33, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

IQ and g -- message for 68.250.8.84

IQ tests measure both g and a set of specific abilities. As an overgeneralization, you can imagine that any particular IQ test probably measures half g and half specific abilities. Raven's is an IQ test that is regarded as measuring almost all g. However, you can extract a g score from any sufficiently diverse battery of g loaded tasks using statistics. Thus, psychologists often only look at the g component of IQ tests, even though there is more to IQ than g. One reason that they do this is that the predictive validity of any IQ test is mediated almost completely by g. --Rikurzhen 19:29, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Added sub-subsection on the US Declaration of Indepence.

I find it to be pretty significant that while the US Declaration of Indepence assumes "all men are created equal," these findings suggest otherwise. I put this apparent contradiction under the "Public Policy" section.

Please respond with comments or criticism (id prefer if you messaged my talk page).--Zaorish 22:41, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

"All men are created equal" is a statement of isonomy, that all persons are equal under the law, rather than that all persons possess equal traits. (That is, there's no conflict between this and the partly-genetic hypothesis.)--Nectar 22:51, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Actually, the Jefferson point is a bit more subtle and profound than that. There's a sort of normative element about legal equality flowing from moral equality, and some other aspects. But in any case, it's silly to claim that Jefferson believed that men (or even less so "persons") were all empirically equal. Nevermind IQ (which he did not have as a concept, nor even really "intelligence" in the sense we use it now), Jefferson obviously knew that some men were tall and some short; some ill and some able; some old and some young; as a more social matter, he did not oppose that some were rich and others poor; and so on. For that matter, he (like everyone in America then and since) was acutely and always aware that some men (and women too) had lighter skin and others darker skin. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 23:01, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
You beat me to that point Lulu. Race only captures a small fraction of the physical, psychological, and genetic diveristy of the human species, a great deal of which occurs between siblings. So there's nothing special about the differences that fall along the race axis as compared to those differences that occur along the many other axes that people can be divided along. (Addendum: I suppose evolutionary psychology has shown that race may be made salient by our like/dislike sense and thus it may be privledged over, for example, the shirt color axis, but that is more about psychology than philosophy.) Sex comes to mind as possibly the most profound -- the sexes differ all the way down to their anatomy! Surely Jefferson never meant that all people were indistinguishable. --Rikurzhen 23:09, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Obviously, only a blind, deaf, mute, and completely senseless person might theorize that all people are objectively equal. You don't need three paragraphs to tell me that--and that wasn't what I was saying in the first place.

I was using the declaration of independence as a way to **introduce** the policy implications. To show an APPARENT contradiction. Because the idea that, in some "high", moral or "spiritual" way, all people are equal, is the basis for all our policies.

An example: The argument that despite race, all people are equal, was used to argue against slavery. Likewise, slavery's defenders often pointed to the "stupidity" of black slaves as justification for their reduced rights, the same way that horses are not as smart as white people, so they are used as slaves even today.

Do you see my point?--Zaorish 02:11, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

But we don't need to write some pedantic C+ freshman philosophy essay in the middle of this encyclopedia article (on a scientific, or maybe pseudo-scientific, but at least it uses the same math, topic). No one who is able to think about g (whether a good analysis or bad), or standard deviations, or correlations between biogeographic regions and gene distributions, and so on, is going to need a high school civics lesson on the meaning of legal equality. Or if they do, this is not the article where they should read it. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:22, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Lulu, I feel your implied character attack is unnecessary and rude.
  • You've convinced me that my idea shouldn't be here--with the point that lower-level articles should describe more basic concepts.

--Zaorish 02:29, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Race accounts for only a small portion of the total variation in IQ. If differences in IQ are problematic for isonomy, then it isn't a special problem for racial differences in IQ. If this is what you mean by "more basic concepts" then you are on the right track. Linda Gottfredson has written on this topic: how IQ is seen as a threat to egalitarianism. --Rikurzhen 04:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Gf

UL, debating the relationship between Gf, g and other factors isn't new to this paper, but the developmental hypothesis may be. Here are a few web sites on this topic [5] [6] [7]

The current text is probably inaccurate in that respect, but you might find something more out there to round it out. OTOH, is there any indication this has anything to do with race? (For example, can it explain why the B-W gap is invariant to parental SES and education?) --Rikurzhen 17:14, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

One might also question noted racial differences in general intelligence that are supported by the method of correlated vectors, referred to as Spearman’s hypothesis. Differences in mental abilities between blacks and whites increase with the size of the g-loadings of various tests, being smaller on measures of crystallized intelligence but more substantial on measures with high g loadings such as fluid skills. Here, at the population level, one might ask whether black-white differences have more to do with gF′ than with g, and whether the gF′ construct underlies the widely held supposition that black-white intelligence differences have more to do with differences in the typical environments in which blacks and whites function in American society than with anything else. As noted above, fluid skills independent of g are liable to environmental influence in a number of ways. Identification of gF′ might suggest that the intelligence of black Americans, as well as ethnic groups the world over living in circumstances either less advantaged than or simply substantially different from that of the average white American differs not so much as a function of g loadings of given cognitive measures as with a culturally loaded g, in which measures purported to be the best measures of general intelligence are those on which some groups may be least likely to do well. Certainly the idea that the intelligence deck is culturally stacked against some groups is not a new one. However, understanding of the relation of one aspect of brain function to intelligence and to intelligence test performance helps to illuminate cross-cultural differences in performance with an alternative, neurobiologically based experiential rather than narrowly defined hereditary explanation for that difference. Ultramarine 17:16, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
I suppose that could be true, but I just want to see that this isn't a violation of WP:NOR. See if you can find a reference. When I get more time I'll check this paper out.
FYI: you might recognize Gf as one of the secondary factors along with Gc, Gs, Gv, Ga, Gq, Gr, etc. Gf is correlated with g at something like r>.9, which I think is why I often see Gf used interchangably with g. I also think I remember seeing something about Raven's and Gf. --Rikurzhen 17:24, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
The above is from the paper I linked to in the article, which seems to be more or less identical to the one in your first link.Ultramarine 17:27, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Do you think you could rewrite it to fix the recently discovered part and make their hypothesis clearer? Of course there needs to be a mention that this is a new hypotheiss. Has it been published anywhere? Maybe Intelligence? --Rikurzhen 17:40, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
The link says preprint. The text already says that it is a new theory. Lots of material in the paper, however, I think that adding more details would only be confusing for this Wikipedia article.Ultramarine 17:50, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Here are two articles by the same author, seems to be supporting articles [8][9]Ultramarine 17:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
In fact, the author seems to have published a lot of articles regarding this: [10]

I made a change, but it's only half better because they're acutally talking about a new variable gF', which sounds like the residual of Gf after you extract g. If I'm getting this right, gF' would be independent of g (by definition) and it is environmentally sensitive. I'll try to read carefully later. --Rikurzhen 18:08, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Where in the article does it say that IQ tests may be biased against gF'? I don't see that claim anywhere, nor does it make sense with the rest of their reasoning. They seem to be saying that gF' is supposed to be well measured by, for example, Raven's and that gF' changes may be responsible for the Flynn effect and that's why Flynn shows up more on tests like Raven's. --Rikurzhen 19:05, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't see even an implication about IQ bias against gF'. It seems that we know exactly how to measure gF' with an IQ test if we look for it. --Rikurzhen 19:24, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Evidence for a distinct developmental pathway for fluid cognition in the study of human cognitive abilities that is particularly rapid in early childhood calls into question the specific utility of measures of general intelligence, particularly for young children. The explicit measurement of a single factor may in many instances not be particularly informative regarding individual cognitive growth and the relation of that growth to adaptive functioning. Unfortunately, several widely used measures of mental abilities, including those frequently used with young children, excel as measures of general intelligence but are weaker as measures of specific cognitive ability factors (Caruso, 2001; Laurent, Swerdlik, & Ryburn, 1992; Woodcock, 1990). Perhaps of most immediate concern, as noted above, widely used measures of intelligence disproportionately assess crystallized skills and domains of intelligence associated with opportunity for learning (Woodcock, 1990). In extensive factor analyses of the most widely used intelligence batteries for children, including the Wechsler batteries, the Stanford-Binet IV, and the WJ-R among others, Woodcock (1990) and McGrew (1997) have shown that approximately one-third of the batteries’ subtests measure crystallized skills and an additional quarter focus on quantitative knowledge and reading/writing skills that directly assess instruction and opportunity for learning; crystallized skills broadly defined. Only approximately 7% of subtests directly assess fluid skills and perhaps another 10% assess processes and memory skills that have a fluid intelligence component. Furthermore, nearly all of the fluid subtests were found on the WJ-R, the only measure explicitly grounded in gF- gC theory. The Wechsler batteries contain no explicit measure of fluid skills and the Stanford-Binet IV was found to contain only one explicit measure of fluid skills. As noted by McGrew (1997), the underrepresentation of measures of fluid skills in widely utilized assessments of intelligence is considerable.
Given that many commonly used measures of IQ disproportionately assess crystallized mental abilities, intelligence as tested by these measures must be seen to be somewhat dependent upon opportunity for and availability of learning experiences in specific domains. This would seem to suggest that these measures are limited in specific ways and are more constrained in their interpretation than may have previously been believed to be the case. This may also indicate that for typically developing children in typical environments, discrepancies between fluid and crystallized aspects of cognition may be small or perhaps not particularly meaningful. This would be due to the fact that nurturing environments tend to provide high levels of educational stimulation. However, for children from chaotic or dysfunctional homes or otherwise facing some experiential or developmental disadvantage, the poor representation of fluid cognitive assessment on currently available measures of intelligence is particularly disadvantageous. As measures of crystallized skills, currently available assessment batteries will provide a limited perspective on the cognitive abilities of children. Furthermore, as outlined in detail above, chaotic rearing environments are likely to have distinct adverse effects on fluid aspects of cognition. Currently available measures, however, will not really be able to address these effects. From a single factor perspective on the measurement of intelligence, the underrepresentation of fluid skills on most measures of intelligence would be of minimal concern. However, such an approach to measurement would not appear to be justified as evidence from a number of sources indicates that increased precision in the assessment of developing fluid cognition in young children is needed.Ultramarine 19:27, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, I found that after I asked. I made a change to increase the certainty and specify the problem is especially on tests given to children. Many adults are given tests like Raven's which is a good measures of gF. --Rikurzhen 19:40, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
You may also find section 3.2 interesting if you have not read it already.Ultramarine 19:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
One thing that comes to mind is Jensen's warning that if you don't have a diverse enough battery of tests then the g you extract will be contaminated. --Rikurzhen 20:07, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Undoubtedly true if you want your g to measure only one general intelligence. However, I think that fluid intelligence would be more valuable to measure than a mixture of fluid and crystallized intelligence. Ultramarine 20:15, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
His point was that without a diverse battery you can't discriminate the factor structure correctly. Whether g, Gf, or Gc is more interesting is an empirical matter. --Rikurzhen 21:07, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Flynn effect

The text added by an anon makes some errors. For example, it's not a given that the average black American today would score better than the average white American in 1920, as the Flynn effect appears to only apply to the lower half of the spectrum (i.e. the 25 point IQ gain didn't occur in "the average American").--Nectar 18:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, yes it is a given, even if the Flynn effect were to apply to the lower half of the IQ spectrum. In 1920, the IQ gap between Blacks and Whites in the US was no more than 25 points. If the 25 point IQ gain occurred in the "lower half" of the IQ spectrum, it did occur in a large percentage of Blacks, which would have put their current average IQ above the average IQ of a White in 1920 (i.e. the gain is somewhere close to 25 points). Hope this sounds clear.Ramdrake 21:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
If the scores of white Americans at the 50 percentile haven't changed substantially, with the Flynn effect ocurring mostly at the lowest score ranges and gradually decreasing from low to high, than their scores on today's tests would still be in the neighborhood of 100. The sentence in the article bypasses this by referring to means, rather than to the average American.--Nectar 21:56, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
I thought Nectar's changes were good. --Rikurzhen 18:54, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
One other thing -- Wicherts looked at Dutch and U.S. samples, so maybe "developed countries" is better than "U.S.". --Rikurzhen 18:57, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Rewrote the Flynn effect paragraph. I see no support for stating the BW gap is genetic, only that it a "real" gap. Ultramarine 19:19, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Let's do happiness instead

Frankly, relatively little seems to happening on this article. As there are several individuals here with an interest in genetics and behaviour, this seems to be a waste of resources. I therefor suggest that we create a good article about the scientific research regarding happiness. Biological explanation, brain structures, genetics, factors in life affecting, national economic factors affecting, effect of political system, and so on. Obviously a very interesting topic and there seems to be much research. I would suggest an article called "Research on happiness" or something similar to avoid confrontation with the very unstable "Happiness" article. Ultramarine 14:45, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Richard Lynn

The reliance of so much of the content on Richard Lynn is certainly quite disturbing. At the very least, it seems like a pretty gross violation of Wikipedia:Reliable sources, e.g.:

  • Do they have an agenda or conflict of interest, strong views, or other bias which may color their report? Remember that conflicts of interest are not always explicitly exposed and bias is not always self-evident. However, that a source has strong views is not necessarily a reason not to use it, although editors should avoid using political groups with widely acknowledged extremist views, like Stormfront.org or the Socialist Workers Party. Groups like these may be used as primary sources only i.e. as sources about themselves, and even then with caution and sparingly.

It's certainly hard to describe Lynn self-published racialist tract as anything other than extremist (dunno if he's an actual member of Stormfront, but his sympathies are certainly close). Attributing the numbers on the supposed relative IQ averages to Lynn at least mitigates harm of mentioning them at all, but not by all that much.

But beyong the utter unreliability of the source, it's disturbing that editors fail (or refuse) to apply the most basic "sniff test" to this stuff. There is a Wikipedia:Common sense guideline, so I'm sure we're not required to excise it from our brains. A claim that Pygmies and Khoi-San have an average IQ that would not allow them to feed or dress themselves, nor survive for a day without close supervision, is self-evidently false. The one thing we can say with certainty is the something is wrong with those numbers: maybe it's heavy test bias (literacy tests to non-literate people); maybe its overwhelming sample bias; maybe it's plain old wild-guess bigotry; maybe something else. Why are we presenting numbers, even with a source, that we know to be false?! Unless it's to show how unreliable the source is, but we already know that.

By way of my famous analogy-o-matic: sometimes physicists come up with elegant seeming explanations, i.e. lots of math. And then once you "run the numbers", some theory winds up having some factual conclusion like, e.g. "The universe collapsed into a singularity 12 billion years ago." Would an article on cosmology just uncritically report: According to Dr. Brilliant Guy, of Princeton University, following the big bang, the universe collapsed into a signularity after 8 billion years? Sure, Dr. Guy's framework might be really clever, and it might be fixable, but we report this as an anomaly not as a fact. (not to say Lynn is either clever nor fixable; but the point applies) Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 18:37, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Lulu, most of the IQ data was not collected by Lynn. AFAIK he did studies in Europe and East Asia, but everything else is data that was collected by someone else, published, and then compiled by Lynn. Perhaps he's lieing about what's published or he's seleting only the low scores from the published literature, but I would assume that such deception would be quickly recognized and reported. --Rikurzhen 18:55, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Given his self-publication of racialist doggerel, it's not exactly like any actual scientist will necessarily spend the effort to scour through all the errors in the book. But let's call it here by "recognized" (by me). Are we going to start citing Klan pamphlets next, on the grounds that "if they had errors, surely they would have been recognized"?! Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:54, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Lynn's IQ compilations are being debated and utilized in the peer reviewed scientific literature. --Rikurzhen 20:06, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, and very much criticized.Ultramarine 20:11, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
UL, that quote can't be paraphrased more precisely? Also, keep in mind here that were talking about averages for an entire geographic region and not a single country. The bit about studies from the 60s is less relevant in that context where such studies are just part of the data and found to be consistent with later studies. If Lynn's conclusions are to be damned for something, let's be fair about what exactly it is without exaggeration. Bringing out such details demands they be balanced by things like Lynn's attempts to validate the findings against other measures. Let's keep it simple and on topic. --Rikurzhen 20:24, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Why should a person's compilation, not peer-reviewed, accusing much of the world's population of being grossly stupid be included in detail while at the same time not allowing peer-reviewed criticism. Extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence.Ultramarine 20:47, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I never tried to block peer-reviewed criticism. You are totally misrepresenting everything going on here. Peer-reviewed criticism still needs to be presented in an NPOV fashion. There are multiple conflicting peer reviewed results. I bet you wouldn't like it if I replaced all your nonsense with a (NPOV) presentation of peer-reviewed studies which correspond to the findings of Lynn, Vanhanen and others? Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 21:22, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, you have. You removed a direct citation from a study, instead keeping long material from a dubious source. Ultramarine 21:27, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
You still haven't explained why you insisted on pretending that Lynn was alone by removing the "and others". Is your strategy to make so many changes at once that the rest of us can't keep up? Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 21:37, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I see no problem with including "and others" Anyone else beside Vanhanen? Not relevant for excluding the criticism.Ultramarine 21:41, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
If you have no problem with "and others", why did you do this: [11] ? Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 21:47, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
At what point was I "keeping long material from a dubious source"? Anyway, do you admit that some of your earlier edits were POV? Your text stated (and this was before you quoted anyone) that the sample sizes were too small. Your, or my, opinion of the best sample size is irrelevant. Admitting that that was a mistake might help to move this discussion on. None of the text I wrote could be described as incorrect or POV in any way if you read it carefully. My only debatable action was removing your quote, but that was only motivated by reverting your rushed blatant deletions of perfectly valid NPOV text written by me. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 22:02, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I have already stated that including Vahanen is acceptable, continuing that argument looks like bad faith. The tags will remain until a correct and npov description of the criticism is included.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Ultramarine (talk • contribs) 22:10, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
My criticism is that we can say the same thing without the quote while being more precise and concise. I certainly take them at their word that some of the studies are small and unrepresentative -- I don't need to see the quote to believe it. --Rikurzhen 21:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Why not just say "Their book, the data behind it, and the interpretation, are controversial" with a link to IQ and the Wealth of Nations#Critique, which does a good job of critique. There was never any need for much detail in the Race and Intelligence article. And a mention of other independent interpretations would be useful. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 22:57, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Also, you can't directly interpret a low measured IQ as meaning that the people behave as a white with a comparable IQ would behave. A San with an IQ of 55 may have the problem solving and abstract reasoning skills of a white child in elementary school, but s/he probably has fully adult abilities of physical coordination, language use, social sensibility, wisdom, creativity, etc. But granted, you probably couldn't train them for anything but the most simple tasks of modern life. They could learn quite well by memorization, but on-the-spot reasoning about more than one idea would be a challege for them. --Rikurzhen 19:02, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Rikurzhen, say you're talking about a hunter-gatherer. In order to do his/her job well (simple hunting), this individual must take into account when hunting several of the following factors: type of prey, size of prey, distance, direction and speed of wind, any idiosyncrasies of the weapon used (be it a spear or a rifle), time of day, time of year, weather, temperature... etc. I say that's any everyday example of on-the-spot reasoning about more than one idea. What do you say? Ramdrake 22:21, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
In other words, you're saying that IQ doesn't mean what the article says it means?! Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:54, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
You must be reading more into this and the related intelligence articles than is actually written there. No? I was a bit imprecise about "language use," which I mean in the broadest sense of the ability ot learn and use a language for communication versus the ability to be verbally adroit -- I mean that such a person would not have a pathological speech/language disorder, but they would likely be illiterate. --Rikurzhen 20:06, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Again, Rikurzhen, many, if not most of these studies when done in third-world countries were done with school children as subjects. By definition, school children are at least partly literate (usually more so than less); nevertheless, their IQ results are lower. Thus, one cannot easily assume that most of those people tested in those countries that yielded a lower IQ score would be "likely illiterate". Now, here's food for thought: I am fluently French/English bilingual; nevertheless I usually score about 12 points higher on average in IQ tests designed in French (my first language) than in English (my second), notwithstanding the fact that my English is excellent (I did teach English for a few months while in British Columbia). I test every few years, and the results are always similar.Ramdrake 22:21, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
The argument is whether average IQs below 70 are prima facie false. I offered that this is a mistaken view of what exactly a familial low IQ would imply about a person's skills. More of this discussion took place here. The gist is that an IQ of 60 indicates a mental age in the 8-10 range (we're not exactly certain), which is certainly enough for survival as a hunter gatherer. If you doubt this, consider what our ape relatives can accomplish with even less intelligence than that. In the end, the question is whether these reports are reliable or not, and my argument is that the facial incredulity is misplaced. --Rikurzhen 22:40, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
Rikurzhen, the problem is that a mental age of 8-10 years for an adult defines a moderate degree of mental retardation as estimated by most physicians, neursocientists and psychologists (I'll insert a proper reference later). Talking to many people originating from these countries, or whose ancestors came from these countries but where educated in Europe or North America, I can vouch for the fact that hardly any of them look like they might suffer from mental retardation. If you grew up in a village in the middle of the African savannah and you suddenly find yourself in the middle of a modern city (just think of Rwandan refugees) you may take some time getting used to the bus and metro system to get from point A to point B (very different to get around using a string of numbers), you may take some time getting used to - a number of things. But with acculturation, eventually, I don't think there's anything these people can't learn than your average person who was born and raised in a city environment can learn, meaning, they have the same potential for developing skills. There is ample evidence of that in my field IT, where more and more of the workforce comes from countries once considered "third world nations" (India, sub-Saharan Africa, Northern Africa, South-East Asia, etc). These people can show they can perform their IT jobs as well and sometimes better than anybody of European or Northern American extraction. When you say that they have a mental age of 8-10 years, you are in fact denying that they have the same learning potential as Occidentals. I see evidence to the contrary every day.Ramdrake 22:45, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Ramdrake, it's very interesting that you say "hardly any of them look like they might suffer from mental retardation". That shows that you base your judgements on whether they 'look' retarded, which is not a helpful attitude. If you want to start another argument, you should produce evidence linking 'retarded looks' with IQ, but that's obviously going off on a tangent.
You really aren't adding anything new when you point out that there are many intelligent people in any race or country. The whole point of averages is that they are averages. You can't say "but some are intelligent", you can just say "also some are intelligent". Unless you're making the crazy assumption that the deviation is precisely zero. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 23:04, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
My apologies for using inaccurate language. I should have said that "hardly any of them behave in any way which suggests any level of mental retardation". By "hardly any of them", I mean no more and no less than I would expect in the general population of any occidental city. The point I'm trying to make is that the observed racial deviation in IQs is likely to be more than covered by cultural differences and there is no reason to assume that it reflects a genuine racial difference in intelligence. However, we may be straining rather far at this point from the subject of Lynn. :) [User:Ramdrake|Ramdrake]] 10:26, 5 February 2006 (UTC)


As per the discussion that took place here, IQ < 70 and retardation are associated in whites living in developed countries. The etiology of these low IQ scores hints that this association is due to common cause rather than low IQ causing someone to 'appear' retarded. Jensen (1998) discusses this w.r.t. African American IQs and "retardation". --Rikurzhen 23:32, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
IQ < 70 and retardation are associated in whites living in developed countries.... Maybe you meant something like, "IQ < 70 and the phenomenon of 'looking retarted' are associated in whites living in developed countries." Jensen (1998).... Pages 367-369. This can actually be read on the web at Amazon.com[12]: Two Types of Mental Retardation Mistaken as Test Bias. [...] What originally drew me into research on test bias was that teachers of retarded classes claimed that far more of their black pupils seem to look and act less retarded than the white pupils with comparable IQ. This was especially apparent in social interactions and playground activities observed by teachers during recess and recreation periods. Their observations were indeed accurate, as I later confirmed by my own observation and testing of pupils in special classes. In social and outdoor play activities, however, black children with IQ below seventy seldom appeared as other than quite normal youngsters--energetic, sociable, active, motorically well coordinated, and generally indistinguishable from their age-mates in regular classes. But this was not so for as many of the white children with IQ below seventy. More of them were somehow "different" from their white age-mates in the regular classes. They appeared less competent in social interactions with their classmates and were motorically clumsy or awkward, or walked with a flatfooted gait.[...] There are two distinguishable types of mental retardation [...] In familial retardation there are no detectable causes of retardation other than the normal polygenic and microenvironmental sources of IQ variation that account for IQ differences throughout the entire range of IQ. [...] Organic retardation, on the other hand, comprises over 350 identified etiologies , including specific chromosomal and genetic anomalies and environmental prenatal, perinatal, and postnatal brain damage [...] Statistical studies of mental retardation based on the white population find that among all persons with IQ below seventy, between one-quarter and one- half are diagnosed as organic, and between one-half and three-quarters are diagnosed as familial. [...] Assuming that organic retardation has a 2 percent incidence in the entire black population, then in classes for the retarded (i.e., IQ < 70) about 2%/16% = 12.5 percent of blacks would be organic as compared to about 1.5%/3% = 50 percent of whites--a white/black ratio of four to one. Hence teachers of retarded classes are more apt to perceive their white children as more generally handicapped by low IQ than [they] are the black children. --hitssquad 08:06, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
Lulu edit-summarized[13]: introduced POV/OR apologetics around retardation.... The research on organic-vs.-familial retardation is published. See above. --hitssquad 03:22, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
Lulu, you're not exactly adding anything new to this talk page. You and I have no knowledge of a conflict of interest that Lynn has, such as a financial interest (and no, making royalties from his book doesn't count as that would apply to anyone). You need to back up your assertion that the IQ results you mention would make someone unable to feed themselves. Stop ranting with the self-evident nonsense. You have no right to say "we know". Are you using the Royal we ("we know") or are you just so pathetic that you simply deny the existence of, never mind that truth of, alternative opinions? And saying that Lynn's results are no to be trusted because they are from Lynn, and saying Lynn is not to be trusted because of this results, is a circular argument. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 19:03, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I also don't believe that Stormfront.org acts chiefly out of financial interest. But Lynn is equally an extermist with a political agenda (actually, the same agenda). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:54, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Huh? Lynn recieves money from the Pioneer Fund, probably directly proportional to how much propaganda he spreads.Ultramarine 20:18, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Lulu, I shouldn't have mentioned conflicts of interest - it's is the Reliable Sources guideline but you didn't explicitly accuse Lynn of a bias. Anyway, my point stands that you are using a circular argument. Ultramarine, same goes for you. It doesn't matter whether Lynn, or for that matter I, are fully paid up members of the KKK, being funded by the Pioneer Fund. Science can never be rationally criticized on the basis of it's results, only on its methods. For all you know, I might agree with you that Lynn's methods were fatally flawed, but it'd be POV of me to waste everyone's time by putting those views into the articles. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 20:54, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Unfortunately, this is not science. A trade book, no peer-review.Ultramarine 20:56, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
So what? Plenty of people publish in trade books. You are assuming that non peer-reviewed stuff is definitely false, instead of simply saying you don't find it convincing. Peer-reviewed articles contradict each other every day in every area of science. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 21:18, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Maybe, but any such claims has much less value. And it is especially POV to include material from such a source and not criticisms from a peer-reviewed source. Ultramarine 21:21, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

This getting ridiculous. Your including long material from Lynn's not peer-reviewed material, but deleting peer-reviewed criticism? Ultramarine 20:36, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Why have not Lynn or Rushton published an overview of IQ studies in a peer-reviewed article? I find it extremely suspicious that they choose to publish it in a trade book instead. Ultramarine 21:02, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
To be fair, this appears to happen frequently in the social sciences when you have something big to say. What journal is going to print a 200+ page article? But moreover, Lynn's work in these two books appears to include no new data, such that there can be no question about the experimental method, only a disagreement about the analysis. At that point, peer review is less important and can be accomplished by book reviews, such as those cited here. (Please note my request for paraphrasing where possible.) --Rikurzhen 21:11, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
A peer-reviewed compilation of prior studies and relation to GDP/capita could certainly fit in a peer-reviewed article. Ultramarine 21:15, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
And this is patently nonsense: "Furthermore the available national IQ samples differ greatly in size,". A sample size of 1 million is hardly any worse than a sample of 10 million. I know the samples probably aren't that big in any country, but weak arguments are weak arguments even if they happen to back up your ideology. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 21:42, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
You are arguing that the sample size of about fifty persons used in Equatorial Guinea is as valuable as the studies using tens of thousands of persons in the US? Ultramarine 21:48, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
I never said any such thing. Read what I say before replying. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 22:08, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
If you're going to attack the sample sizes behind the data used by Lynn and other(s), then why not ask someone who knows something about statistics (like me) to write the section, instead of using false arguments from others? Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 22:14, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Your opinion is uninteresting, original reserach is not allowed.Ultramarine 22:17, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
My point exactly! You were the only one to cause the wiki article to have a POV on appropriateness or otherwise of the sample size. One minute you do that, and the next you insist that nobody here should have any hand in writing anything about the appropriate sample size. Pure hypocrisy! Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 22:34, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Huh? I have presented a criticism from a peer-reviewed paper that you have deleted without any good explanationUltramarine 04:05, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Hi guys, me again. I must admit that last night I failed to assume good faith in a number of instances, for example my comment just above at 22:34 UTC. Sorry about that. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 21:35, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

The tags will remain until the criticism is presented fairly and accurately. Present any serious suggestions here.Ultramarine 22:11, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Equatorial Guinea is not mentioned in the article. Sample size would be relevant if the subject were individual nations. But the subject is much broader -- major races that each encompass dozens of nations. The significance -- to the question of race and intelligence -- of the IQ scores of sub-Saharan Africa is that they tend to agree with each other. If the sample sizes were a major problem, the nation scores might be expected to diverge more. If the scores for black Africans are artificially low, 1) why do they tend to agree so much from nation to nation, and 2) what would that say about the IQ-environment hypothesis? Are sub-Saharan black Africans -- despite their objectively substandard environments, relative to those of the developed nations -- actually possessed of IQ's averaging around 100? Why do the IQ's of Arab nations tend to agree so much? Why do the IQ's of Han Asian nations and societies tend to agree so much? None of these questions are answered by a sample-size factor. --hitssquad 05:44, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Equatorial Guinea is a small nation. The population in 2005 was only 535,881. The population growth rate is listed at that same site as 2.42%. If that same growth rate has applied since 1984, the population in 1984 must have been ~324,000 [14]. The IQ survey sample size was not in relation to a population of millions. It was in relation to a population of perhaps only a little over 300,000. The relative sample size for the United States today would be 43,852 (.015% of the population). Unless this calculation is wrong, perhaps a better example of inadequate sample size could be found. --hitssquad 16:24, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
The population of a country is almost entirely irrelevant to answering how big a sample is required for a given amount of certainty. Only with really really small countries (under 10,000 say) is there any significant justication for smaller samples sizes. So whether it was 300,000 or 300 million is irrelevant, a sample big enough for one case is big enough for the other. How one chooses the participants is probably more important anyway. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 21:47, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

IQs of 60

Steve Sailer wrote on this in a UPI article:

"The majority of low IQ individuals do not suffer from medical problems such as Down's Syndrome. Gottfredson noted, "About 75 percent-80 percent of mental retardation is called 'familial,' because it mostly just represents the unlucky combinations of genes that are passed in the normal manner from parents to children. Only a small proportion of mental retardation is due to organic problems, such as chromosomal abnormalities or brain damage. This is just like height. Most very short people are perfectly normal."
The stereotype that most low IQ children are what obstetricians often callously refer to in their notes as FLKs - "Funny Looking Kids" is not true. Elite members of American society tend not to realize this because when an extremely high-IQ person, such as a Supreme Court justice, has a retarded child, it's generally due to organic causes.
As children, these "familial" low-IQ individuals fit in well on the playground, where they may be indistinguishable from their higher-IQ friends. They are normal, except that they run into problems when they need to do the higher-order, abstract thinking that a modern society rewards.
Familial low IQ has been quite common in the past, in other countries today, and in segments of American society."[15]

Schaefer gave a similar response to this question at Talk:IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations.

"'An IQ of below 60 marks you out as "developmentally challenged" to the point where you struggle to function independently.' Not always. This is generally true if you're making inferences about White middle-class American school children, because most of them that score that low on IQ tests have some obvious mentally retarding medical condition that caused them to score so far below average. [...] That people with low IQs are the ones who can't ties their shoes and so on is often taken too strongly as evidence that IQ is an important thing for being able to live independently and avoid appearing mentally retarded in conversations and such, when the correlation is likely at least partially the result of a common cause. That is, White children with very low IQs tend to be the ones that can't take care themselves because whatever form of mental retardation they have that causes them to score poorly on IQ tests also causes them to be unable to take care of themselves. This correlation doesn't hold (at least not at the same IQ ranges) for Blacks. A sub-Saharan African that scores a 60 on a standard IQ test might still be within a standard deviation of the average score for the other people in his country, so we don't need to assume that there's any exceptional medical situation causing the low IQ. What causes inability to function independently is not just low IQ, it's Down's syndrome and autism and other things that tend to lead to poor performance on IQ tests as well. If you look at the subsections of various ethnic groups that achieve certain scores on IQ tests, you get vastly different demographics depending on the group. An IQ of 60 would probably imply socially-debilitating mental retardation if it was scored by a child of, say, two parents who both have IQs of 130, but not if it was found in a child of two parents who both have an IQ of 65. [...]" -- Schaefer 11:12, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

--Nectar 23:39, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

In addition -- A sizeable fraction of the low IQ in Africa must be due to malnutrition and under-nutrition. However, there's no evidence AFAIK that nutritional deficiencies cause a "retarded" phenotype or cause the syndromes that cause a retarded phenotype. --Rikurzhen 23:50, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps this will help thinking about IQ 60... Consider IQs 40 or more points higher than average. Most of you probably score in that range. (You can calculate IQ scores from GRE scores here). Or consider: the average white college grad in the U.S. has an IQ about 30 points higher than the average black in the U.S. However, this 30 point difference does not correspond much if at all with variation along a "retarded" continuum. So to understand a "normal" IQ of 60 try to extrapolate backwards. A normal IQ 60 would indicate a severely limited abiltity to plan, reason, think abstract, and etc., but need not imply an inability to do tasks learned by rote, etc. --Rikurzhen 00:15, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Well... since you ask: GRE 1560->Stanford-Binet 159 (Cattell 189?!). Though my SAT scores when I wasn't much trying were significantly lower. Some pre-verbal scores when I was little baby... well varied all the hell over the place, say a 50 point range (but both higher and lower than the above).
And it's my big brain that leads me to think that the claim that an average Pygmie is walking around with a 54 IQ is absurd on its face. I'm about as likely to think it's actually true as I am the hypothetical cosmological result that the universe already collapsed billions of years ago. When the results produce something you know to be false, the only sensible question one can ask is: What methodological flaws produced this bad data? Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 04:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

An IQ of 54 represents a mental age of about 8 for whites. An 8 year old is in 1st/2nd grade and is able to learn simple math and reading. Most people in that population would have IQs in the range of 35 to 75, which is an age equivalent range of about 5.5 to 11.5. A group of children in this age range with the physical abilities of adults could maintain a hunter-gatherer society. (I guess the Pygmy are actually not all that much taller than the children.)

That said, if we can settle this by just deleting reference to the San and Pygmy IQs, whose combined populations I'm guessing add up to ~100k people, then I'm all for it. However, it does seem like covering something up to not mention how low the scores that Lynn reports go. --Rikurzhen 06:48, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Unless they are breeding outside of that small population, they must be highly inbred. That might seem to imply a relatively small standard deviation. I recall that typical sub-Saharan African standard-devations tend to be smaller than those of Europeans. If we guess that the sample had a standard-deviation of 8 points, that would imply that ~68% of the sample had IQ's between 48 and 62 IQ points (mental ages of about 8 to 9 years). --hitssquad 07:11, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I meant +/- 2sd, so 95% would fall in that range. --Rikurzhen 07:22, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
OK. By the way, I should have said mental ages of about 8 to 10 years, figuring as Lynn did in Eugenics: a Reassessment that IQ 75 is 12 mental years, IQ 25 is 4 mental years, IQ 50 is 8 mental years, and 6.25 IQ points represents the distance between any two given adjacent mental years. --hitssquad 08:47, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Criticisms of IQatWoN

"Richard Lynn's Massaged IQ Data

Anyone who uses Richard Lynn's national IQ values should be aware that this data is "massaged"; either that, or Lynn doesn't know elementary arithmetic. Of course, I did not have time to go through all of the studies referenced by Lynn, so I manually checked his reported numbers from Buj (1981), a study on national European IQ levels, which I have personally read when writing my Greek and European IQ page.

The first column below are the original numbers from Buj (1981) taken from [1] and cross-checked against my own reading of the original paper. The second column are the numbers reported in IQ and the Wealth of Nations. Lynn rounds most numbers to the closest integer, but Italy's score is rounded down (0.8->0), Austria's score is rounded down (0.5->0), Ireland's score is "rounded" up (0.2->1), Norway's score is 1.8 lower than the real one, Greece's score is 2.4 lower than the one reported by Buj (1981). All in all, 5 errors in 19 numbers from a single study."[16]

This makes the book valueless, except possible for postmortem studies to see how the data the was misreported and if there is a systematic bias and a deliberate fraud.Ultramarine 21:21, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Why is one personal website (by a non-professor) allegedly "debunking" some refereed sources supposed to be definitive, while a self-published trade book by overt racial-supremicist Lynn (that is been torn apart by dozens or hundreds or credentialed scientists) treated almost reverentially and uncritically?! Could it be that some editors here have a similar extremist agenda to push, much as Lynn does? This page shows almost zero respect for WP:RS as far as I can tell (certainly it can't be considered non-partisan as long as Lynn is used as a source of "facts"). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:04, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I think what's being said is that a previous WP editor has expressed skepticism about the reliability of this web site, not that his opinion is being treated as a reliable fact to write in an article. But again Lulu, I don't see what grounds we have to doubt Lynn's compliation of IQ scores as (1) he didn't collect them and (2) his work has been scrutinized by experts who would have noticed errors (which I take it some were found). --Rikurzhen 21:12, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
This is far too generous to Lynn, but from IQ and the Wealth of Nations: A review of the book in Contemporary Psychology (49 (4). pp389-395. Barnett, Susan M.; Williams, Wendy) stated: "In sum, we see an edifice built on layer upon layer of arbitrary assumptions and selective data manipulation. The data on which the entire book is based are of questionably validity and are used in ways that cannot be justified." Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:32, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I just skimmed their review and I think we cover the criticisms with the data available especially from the developing world is speculative due to limited sampling, year of testing, and varying type of IQ test used. But note that this is a review of IQatWoN not the new book. The Eq. Ghana example is thus a poor example: certainly something more relavent exists. --Rikurzhen 22:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Catholic-Protestant gap in Ireland?

The article says:

in Northern Ireland the IQ gap between Protestants and Catholics was recorded in 1984 as being as large as that between Blacks and Whites in the US (Lynn et al. 1984)

I thought this was interested, especially since Lynn is an author. I looked up the paper to see what their data looked like. However, I could not find any claims about IQ differences between Protestants and Catholics. I did find a difference in employment between the two of approximately 1 SD, which someone might have misread as an IQ gap of 1 SD (15 points). Can someone else check this out? --Rikurzhen 23:20, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I found this some time ago. I forget how I found it http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-inferiorIQ.htm. It links to the same paper by Lynn. Perhaps that page got it's interpretation from wikipedia, and is therefore not very helpful. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 00:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Wrong reference, this is it: "Great Britain: Research by Richard Lynn discussed in Ciaran Benson, "Ireland's 'Low' IQ," pp. 222-23 in Russell Jacoby and Naomi Glauberman (eds.), The Bell Curve Debate (New York: Times Books, 1995)." Ultramarine 04:00, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Great. If that can be added to the reference page than the sentence can be added back in.--Nectar 07:31, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
No one here has read that book. Until that situation changes, reports of what it says are just heresay. (And the book would not be directly citable anyway. If Lynn's paper is not cited directly, it would have to be cited as a cite in Ciaran Benson's paper.) --hitssquad 08:21, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
This getting more and more ridiculous. Many referenced statements are now selectively deleted. This article has now no longer any resemblance to reallity. Ultramarine 12:16, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Even a NPOV template is deleted.Ultramarine 12:22, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
The template referred to an article, not a section. After Nectar moved it to a section, I was going to change it to the section template but found there was no section template that allowed commentary insertion (so changing it would have deleted your commentary). --hitssquad 13:38, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Where is the Wikipedia policy that one must give evidence that one has read a particular source? Source given, deletion of material makes Wikipedia a soapbox.Ultramarine 13:48, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I am unable to accurately paraphrase something if I do not know what it says. --hitssquad 14:14, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
This is perfectly acceptable [17]. According to your argument, it is forbidden to quote for example a a review article. I could state that quoting material from their trade book is forbidden if you do not give evidence that you have read the original studies. Ultramarine 14:21, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Quotes of known text are not paraphrases of unknown text. --hitssquad 14:46, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Huh? The article linked I is not unknown text and is as valuable as their trade book.Ultramarine 14:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
in Northern Ireland the IQ gap between Protestants and Catholics was recorded in 1984 as being as large as that between Blacks and Whites in the US is a paraphrase, not a quote. --hitssquad 14:52, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
State the Wikipedia policy where this is forbidden. Anyone can (and often do) publish a trade book. There is no reason for allowing material from a trade book and not this material.Ultramarine 14:55, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I am unable to accurately paraphrase something if I do not know what it says. --hitssquad 14:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
No wikipedia policy, no valid reason for exclusion. Note that the book has been accused of gross errors, possible even deliberate fraud.[18][19]Ultramarine 15:01, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
When you said wrong reference, were you referring to Lynn et al. 1984 or to Kangaroo? --hitssquad 15:41, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Obviously Lynn et al. 1984.Ultramarine 16:59, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Could you tell me which research of Lynn's Ciaran Benson referred to in Jacoby&Glauberman, eds., 1995? --hitssquad 17:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Again, you are repeating yourself. I am not required to pass a cross examination, I have given a source as good as Lynn's trade book.Ultramarine 17:09, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Drummond's review of that site

User:Drummondaka DAD did a debunking of that site a while ago: "Check Your Facts (at the Door?)." It's not a trustworthy site for an encyclopedia to reference.--Nectar 20:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

His opinion. And I have presented sources showing that the trade book is not trustworthy, grossly misreporting the actual data. Ultramarine 20:54, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
What statements in this article can be attributed to misreporting in secondary sources? --Rikurzhen 20:59, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I question the inclusion of this trade book when opposing views of equal value are exluded. Violation of NPOV. Ultramarine 21:01, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I guess I'm missing something -- what views? --Rikurzhen 21:02, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
The Northern Ireland gap.Ultramarine 21:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Ah, and so I guess there's some question whether the site is accurately reporting the facts as presented in the secondary source. My local library has a copy of The Bell Curve Debate. I can check it out the next time I'm there. Else, someone can email one of the authors, Lynn or Benson, and ask them if the site is accurate. --Rikurzhen 21:12, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Until someone do, it is as valuable as the trade book, and this view should not be excluded.Ultramarine 21:14, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, The Bell Curve Debate is as reliable as any trade book, but it appears that this site is a little loose with the facts. It's not clear to me that it's a reliable source. --Rikurzhen 21:17, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
On the other hand, it is clear to me that the trade book is not a reliable source.Ultramarine 21:24, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
The site verifiably makes the mistaken claims that Henry Fairchild was an author of the APA report, and that the AFQT is not considered a proxy for IQ tests.--Nectar 21:18, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

What IQ tests measure

There's a familiar saying that what IQ tests measure is the ability to score well on IQ tests. That seems like a good thing to keep in mind. Actually, I know this is entirely anecdotal, but my little autobiographical experience casts some doubt on the "consistent lifetime results" idea. My silly psych-grad-school enamored dad gave me a bunch of baby IQ tests... and the results differed over about 3 SDs. Well, OK, maybe just criticize the examiner. But if you look at my SAT vs GRE results, there's still over 1 SD difference; and the reason is pretty straightforwardly that I was trying harder on the GRE (different age, different motivation, etc)... but I certainly wasn't deliberately not trying on the SAT either, which was much lower results. I have no interest in wasting effort on any other such standardized tests.

The thing about the absurdly low purported IQ's of various (generally African) people that Lynn purports is that we know a priori that what they are measuring is not "unitary general cognitive ability". An average Pygmy is simply not severely mentally retarded (no matter what obfuscatory remarks editors might make about organic and inorganic causes somehow reflecting fundamentally different mental abilities, or whatever). Of course, most of Lynn's data is just grossly fraudulent anyway (very small samples; selective use of studies advancing a conclusion; basic arithmetic errors; etc). But I actually tend to believe that a lot of peoples would indeed get IQ scores that are clearly discordant with their "unitary general cognitive ability".

Various explanations jump out as probable, though I'm not saying any of them are citable for the article itself:

  1. Cultural bias in test design. Tests that are relatively reliable among middle-class Americans are not necessarily at all meaningful among non-literate peoples with entirely different societal structures (even tests that do not per-se test verbal abilities).
  2. Motivational bias among test takers. Pygmies may well care even less about the IQ test some foreign antropologists hand them than I did as a bratty 18 y.o. SAT taker.
  3. Expectational bias among test administrators. You can hardly overestimate the degree to which the expectations of psychologists wind up shaping the performance of test subjects (I should dig up some stuff on this... there's some remarkable stuff where, e.g. psych grad students are secretly also subjects, and fed expectations about test results... despite "objective" design, the secondary subjects wind up peforming exactly as the test administrators are told to expect).

But again: We know the universe did not cease to exist 12 billion years ago, so we should not uncritically report some cosmological result that says it did. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 22:19, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Psychologist Edwin G. Boring invented the what the tests test quote. See Chris Brand, The g Factor. A score gap between the SAT and the GRE may be attributable to "teaching to the test." Most IQ tests do not have study guides. The rest of your concerns are addressed in Bias in Mental testing (Jensen, 1980). --hitssquad 22:31, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, and maybe my biographical SAT/GRE/childhood test gaps are attributable to the fact mercury was in ascendence in my sign when I took it (is that astrology talk, I don't really know). Hitssquad's stipulation is actually almost exactly opposite to the facts (I went to a high school that basically "taught the SAT", like many; then spent college years not doing anything vaguely related to anything specifically on the GRE). But sure, any conclusion you want to support can be saved by enough ad hoc excuses or rationalizations. The real reason in my case that there was a gap was purely motivational... and it's not at all far-fetched to suppose that Pygmies (or Aborigines, or whomever) may not approach IQ tests, administered by passing anthropologists, with exactly the same motivation structure as do westerners in educational settings. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 01:38, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
For the San and Pygmy I just don't know because I've never read the original studies. For people in developed countries, there's no doubt. For most other populations enough care has been taken (and validity/factor structure/etc estimated) to make these IQ scores a relatively good estimate. What you should keep in mind is that 1/3 - 1/2 of some of these populations is malnourished, which appears to shave 10-15 points off IQ if it's severe. --Rikurzhen 22:44, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
If you take severe malnurishment into account, it starts to make some of the numbers in the 70s look vaguely plausible. But even given that, there's something else very wrong with the data collection or aggregation for claims of human populations with means in the 50s-60s. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 01:38, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I can't say whether it's prima facie false or not, but (1) I deleted the San/Pygmy ref b/c they are such small/isolated groups and (2) these are groups (e.g. indigenous Australians) who are effectively hunter-gathers (which may be the cause or consequence of exteremely low IQ). --Rikurzhen 03:08, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm a bit confused that we go to lengths in this article to carefully state that IQ tests must be interpreted statistically to derive any reliable measure of g the intelligence factor, as opposed to setting-specific skill abilities, and then we present differences in IQ as being an indication of disparate levels of intelligence between people. Can someone find analytical data that demonstrates a difference in the measured g factor between these different ethnic groups or races, however you prefer to call them? I've grown up with an understanding that a significant amount of the IQ score was culture-sensitive (ie. people could score differently based on hidden or sometimes not-so-hidden cultural bias of the test itself); in this context, I would be hardly surprised that a test devised in any given culture would rate lower IQ-wise people who do not belong to that culture. One simple way to test this would be to administer an IQ test devised say, in China to students in North America or in Europe. That's just my guess, but my guess says they score lower than they would on European or American tests.Ramdrake 21:39, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Race npov

Can someone detail what statements or assumptions are disputed in the race section, or what statements they'd like to see added?--Nectar 01:42, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Meaning this tag, right? The tag says Critical studies are argued to have been excluded, and criticism is presented misleadingly. I don't see how this can possibly apply as the section is almost empty of content and what content is there consists of (1) a two sentence summary of the race article, (2) a definitional list of how racial labels correspond to the more scientifically aggreeable categorization system of biogeographic ancestry, and (3) a note about how race impacts politics in the U.S. Certainly all detail is excluded, but race is way to big to be described in anything but the most critical --Rikurzhen 03:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

World wide NPOV tag

Using Lynn can never conform with WP:RS

lulu wrote this in response to Nectar, who was asking about this tag I believe. --Rikurzhen 03:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Basically, I don't think a listing of the alleged average IQ of different (sub-race) groups can be NPOV if it relies on citations to Richard Lynn. This is a gross violation of WP:RS. Lynn is:

  1. Overtly extremist
  2. Has demonstrated bias, agenda and fraud
  3. Not peer reviewed, his latest is not even published by a reputable trade-publisher, but self-published (it's disappointing that Praeger fell for publishing IQatWoN; but it appears no one was willing to bite that poisoned apple a second time).
  4. Frequently and thoroughly debunked
  5. Inconsistent on its face
  6. Obviously false using the most basic common sense

Essentially the entire section as it exists is an ode to Lynn. Even if we preface the descriptions with "According to Lynn" (which I needed to go back-and-forth with to get in place at all; against some editors who wanted it presented as neutral consensus), it still gives his political editorial weight that is not merited. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:13, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Lynn as overt racist

I don't know about Lynn's politics (honestly I just don't know), but I don't see how he could possibly hope (as an academic) to get away with any kind of scholarly misbehavior with regard to reporting something like the average IQ of whole continents (which would require the averaging of many dozens of reports), and at present count the reviews are 1/1 positive (albeit by a person who agrees with him on many controversial questions). A report doesn't need to be peer reviewed before publication if review happens afterwards. (This is more than most newspapers articles get.) The existence of derivative work and the inconsistency of criticisms of the IQatWoN data sets suggests that he is not thoroughly debunked. As for the actual values -- I don't think we can rule anything out at face value when it comes to people living in extreme environments. --Rikurzhen 03:20, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

You honestly don't know?! He's a hard-right white supremacist, and hardly subtle about it. But it's not hard to selectively hand-pick a few studies, misrepresent exactly what they tested, and massage results to make it look like your conclusions represented a mass of studies... it doesn't hurt if you're willing, as Lynn is, to perform basic arithmetic wrong also. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters
Some documentation at Richard Lynn could be used. --Rikurzhen 05:41, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Some of this can probably be reigned in. It's problematic to call someone's work white supremacist when it considers Jews and Asians to be of higher mean IQ than whites. Of the two large transcription errors Dianekes reported, one was reporting Norway's average to be 1.8 points lower than it was in the source data, so it may be hasty to accuse these errors of being ideologically motivated deceptions. Whether to consider him a scientist or something else, as you propose, is probably best decided by if his work is published in scientific journals. His work does get published in journals such as Intelligence. --Admissions 04:08, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
From Racism Resurgent: Here's a sample of Lynn's thinking on such differences: "What is called for here is not genocide, the killing off of the population of incompetent cultures. But we do need to think realistically in terms of the 'phasing out' of such peoples.... Evolutionary progress means the extinction of the less competent. To think otherwise is mere sentimentality." (cited in Newsday, 11/9/94) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters (talk • contribs) 13:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
The Pioneer Fund responded to this on their website[20]:
Had you ABC News investigators investigated] to the extent of actually reading the piece by Professor Lynn, you would have discovered easily enough that he was summarizing, by paraphrase, ideas found in a 1972 book authored by the famous psychologist Raymond B. Cattell, (New York: Pergamon Press), for a November 1974 book review published in the Bulletin of the British Psychological Society. Professor Lynn, who was not contacted by ABC, informed me that the sentences quoted by ABC were the views of the book's author, and not an expression of his own opinion at all.
 ? He generally approves of the book, though. From the last paragraph of that review: "And so for Cattell the basic principles for a scientific ethics are these: diverse societies and types; competition between societies and between individuals; survival of the fittest, extinction of the unfit. This is the way to a better world. How different from most prescriptions for Utopia, with their socialistic world states in which competition is extinguished and all men work together in a spirit of co-operation, brotherly love and, no doubt, boredom.... Over the last forty years Cattell has evidently travelled the long road from radical Socialist to high Tory. He is not the first to have done so. Those who share this latter viewpoint will welcome a recruit of such undoubted brilliance as Raymond Cattell." Interesting comment on a book that advocate sthe 'phasing out' of 'inferior races'. ScottMacEachern 16:56, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
On February 16th, 1990, only one day after his appearance in the Big Rapids Pioneer, Professor Mehler himself gave a rambling presentation at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), from which it was quite clear that he understood fully that Richard Lynn's words had been intended to summarize the Cattell book for a book review (there are other forms of scientific articles called "reviews").
At the AAAS meeting, Professor Mehler's exact words were: "Richard Lynn is summarizing the book. It's in a review that he wrote . . . and he says: 'See what we are talking about here is not genocide . . . . ' " Three months later, however, on May 14, 1990, Professor Mehler was again informing the world, or at least the television audience of the Donahue show (transcript #2945), that "Richard Lynn writes a review . . . in which . . . he says--and this is almost a quote--what we're talking here about is 'phasing out incompetent societies.'" Neither Professor Cattell's name nor the name of his book was mentioned on this occasion, and the possible significance of the single word "review" was surely lost on Mr. Donahue and his audience. --hitssquad 13:36, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Leon Kamin's review of IQatWoN The Bell Curve (edited by Rikurzhen) in Scientific American included: I will not mince words. Lynn's distortions and misrepresentations of the data constitute a truly venomous racism, combined with scandalous disregard for scientific objectivity. But to anybody familiar with Lynn's work and background this comes as no surprise . . . It is a matter of shame and disgrace that two eminent social scientists . . . [would cite the work of] Richard Lynn . . . —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters (talk • contribs) 13:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
That's Leon Kamin's review of TBC. I don't take anything written by him in that context seriously. --Rikurzhen 08:25, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
More on Lynn's fraudulent data, from [21]: Lynn took the Pons data from Crawford-Nutt's paper and converted the number of correct responses into a bogus average "IQ" of 75. Lynn chose to ignore the substance of Crawford-Nutt's paper, which reported that 228 black high school students in Soweto scored an average of 45 correct responses on the Matrices--HIGHER than the mean of 44 achieved by the same-age white sample on whom the test's norms had been established and well above the mean of Owen's coloured pupils. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters (talk • contribs) 13:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
Well, W.D. Hamilton, one of the preeminent biologists of the 20th century spoke well of him[22], describing Lynn as "brave, thick-skinned, and very persistent to swim against ... popular antirealistic currents" and that he "does an excellent job with the facts". But moreover, now that we can see how many studies are supporting each estimate, it's ridiculous to claim that he's making this stuff up, with the possible exception of the Bushmen and Pygmy, which I rightly guessed had very few studies done on them. Note also the bizarre finding that several of these very low IQ groups score at or above the white mean on visual memory tasks. That's a strange finding to make up. So is the relatively low IQ of the Arctic peoples that Lynn insists on (despite previous reports of high scores for this group), which is the strongest evidence against Lynn's cold climate. In light of all this, I can't see how one could dismiss Lynn's book as unreliable. Even if you add +/- 5 to every value, it won't change the picture as written here. --Rikurzhen 09:27, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't matter if you add +/-500 to each number in Lynn's political diatribe and fabrication. It is bad science and extremist politics on every word of every page of every book. It has exactly zero value for any serious encyclopedia article. It is a shame that a small number of serious scientists have been misled enough to take any of this at face value, but unfortunately, a lot of the same bias is awfully widespread (scientists aren't exempt from bigotry). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 09:46, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
political diatribe and fabrication What??? -- I'm not going to bother responding to the crack at The Bell Curve as I'm sure you've read the APA's findings as well as the quotes from Neisser on the contribution of Pioneer funded research from the review I linked below. --Rikurzhen 09:58, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
On the general "citation circle" of Pioneer Fund pseudo-science where all citations are to other authors in the same ideological group, Academi Nazism: HM cite no fewer than thirteen such "scholars" supported by the Pioneer Fund. Lynn's work alone is cited twenty-four times in the Bibliography of The Bell Curve. Virtually every important claim HM make is based on citations of works by Pioneer Fund supported, Mankind Quarterly published authors. What this means is that The Bell Curve is a vehicle of Nazi propaganda wrapped in a cover of pseudo-scientific respectability. It is an academic version of Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters (talk • contribs) 13:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
The point, after a while of these pervasive demonstrations of fraud and bias is, as I said, that treating Lynn as anything remotely in the same ballpark as WP:RS is an insult to WP readers. Citing him not just once, but as the sole and entire basis of large swatches of the article... it's just "beyond the pale" as they say (no offense meant to all the fine Irishmen who are not racists... look up the phrase). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 09:14, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
I've had occasion to go back and recheck the African sources for IQ scores in Lynn and Vanhanen's book (which is not especially straightforward). There's a pattern there of misuse of sources, usually involving Lynn and Vanhanen's disregard of the original interpretation of the original authors and of the cautions about confounding factors expressed by those authors. The Ethiopian example I added is one such - their Ethiopian IQ score comes from a single study of refugees in Israel, where the researchers think the scores are confounded by cultural factors. Lynn has a history of doing this -- see for example his mis-use of Owen's data on South African populations (Owen, K. 1989. Test and Item Bias: The Suitability of the Junior Aptitude Tests as a Common Test Battery for White, Indian and Black Pupils in Standard 7. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council.) When I have time, I'll edit that section some more and see what happens - but I'm just learning how this works. ScottMacEachern 03:13, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
This is from the Appendix 1 of IQ and the Wealth of Nations: Ethiopia Around 1989, data for a sample of 250 15-year-old Ethiopian immigrants to Israel tested with the Standard Progressive Matrices have been reported by Kaniel and Fisherman (1991). In relation to the 1979 British standardization sample, their mean IQ was 65. Because of the 10-year interval between the two collections of data, this needs to be reduced to 63. Kaniel and Fisherman think the Raven's Matrices scores are confounded by cultural factors? How might cultural factors confound Raven's Matrices scores? --hitssquad 12:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
For the broader question, the Raven's is one of the tests where the Flynn Effect shows up most clearly, which indicates that control over confounding factors isn't as great as is sometimes claimed. Specifically, Kaniel and Fisherman say: (a) (p. 26-27) that Falasha (Beit Israel) populations in Ethiopia lived under extremely different cultural situations than those of teh Israeli students to whom they were compared - they were tested just one year after coming to Israel; (b) (p.30) that the results indicate some developmental delay among Ethiopian immigrant populations, such that 14-year-old Ethiopians test as well as 9-year-old native Israelis; and (c) that (p. 30) another paper (Kaniel and Tzuriel 1990) indicate that the Ethiopian immigrants are able to catch up with native Israelis on test performance over time. Leaves a rather different impression, doesn't it? That's not the only such case, either. ScottMacEachern 14:34, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
able to catch up [...] over time is different from confounding by cultural factors. Lynn and Jensen have also reported test-retest gains on the Matrices. What is important is the scores for Ethiopians, as they were in Ethiopia. Are there indications that the test was unfair for that population? --hitssquad 18:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
The population wasn't tested in Ethiopia, so hard to say what those scores would have been there. The authors list a variety of cultural factors associated with the recent arrival of those populations in Israel at the beginning of the article, including acquisition of a new language, new social and cultural roles, new gender roles and so on. And, to repeat, they say at the end of the article that they believe these results "...[don't] imply that the subjects will exhibit low cognitive abilities over the long term". In part, they believe this to be the case because a relatively short period of mediation using Feuerstein's Learning Potential Assessment Device results in significantly improved scores. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ScottMacEachern (talk • contribs) 23:27, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
The population wasn't tested in Ethiopia.... I thought when you wrote they were tested just one year after coming to Israel that you meant to imply that they were still very much culturally Ethiopian. What did you mean, then? including acquisition of a new language, new social and cultural roles, new gender roles.... Normally, it is theorized that environments rich in intellectual stimulation should, ceteris paribus, raise IQ[23][24][25]. Are you meaning to imply that being exposed to learning environments can cause IQ's to go down? they believe these results "...[don't] imply.... Lynn's purpose was to collect professionally-obtained IQ scores. Any given wishful thinking that may have been expressed by the authors in the text of the same publications is not relevant to that. a relatively short period of mediation using Feuerstein's Learning Potential Assessment Device results in significantly improved scores.... This is an example of teaching to the test (which has always resulted in g-hollow IQ-score gains). As I said above, "What is important is the scores for Ethiopians, as they were in Ethiopia." If the scores were not relevant, why would an instrument intended to raise IQ scores be applied to the subjects? In America, the IQ scores of Black children have always been considered relevant, by all major parties involved in social science and social policy. This is why the Head Start program was started and why the Abecedarian and Milwaukee projects were funded. The thinking was not, "Once Black kids' IQ scores are high enough, those scores will become relevant." The thinking was, "Black kids' IQ scores are relevant and they are too low, and this is why it is important to spend money to raise them up to parity with those of White kids. --hitssquad 00:15, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
They were culturally very much Ethiopian, but the authors have noted in this and a variety of other papers the significant cultural disruptions that have been associated with the movement of Beit Israel people to Israel. I suggest that you acquaint yourself with that literature: you might start with, for example Ringel, S., N. Ronell and S. Getahune (2005) Factors in the integration process of adolescent immigrants: The case of Ethiopian Jews in Israel. _International Social Work_ 48(1):63-76. I would also suggest that it is a minimal example of good practise, when citing a psychometric study on a complex topic of this sort, to cite not merely the single IQ number but also the actual conclusions that the authors come to. But this is in fact characteristic of Lynn -- to take a well-knwon example, he cites (in his 1991 'Race differences in intelligence: a global perspective'. _Mankind Quarterly_ 31: 255-296) the tests administered by Owen (1989) on different groups in South Africa as “…[t]he best single study of the Negroid intelligence...”, but Owen himself (1989: 60, 62-68) indicated significant problems with these tests, many involving language difficulties experienced by the African test-takers, and did not assign IQ scores for the results. He does this for a number of other African cases as well. As for the change in test scores: if researchers are actually interested in the use of IQ test scores in examining learning patterns - as the authors of the original article were - and not as an instrument of racial denigration - as Lynn is - then certainly they are relevant to the study of Ethiopians adjusting to life in Israel. But that does not mean, nor do the original authors take it to mean, that the single number in the original study says anything universal about 'Ethiopian intelligence'. ScottMacEachern 01:06, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Rejoinder on the complete unreliability of Lynn

Okay folks, back to the question at hand, which is the reliability of RDiI, which appears to be an expansion of IQ&tWoN. Unless someone plans on breaking out the individual country scores, all we care about are the geographical averages. On this count, the number of studies and the samples sizes seem sufficent to rule out gross inaccuracy. --Rikurzhen 02:01, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Huh?! So you're saying that if Lynn lies enough times, on average the lies amount ot a truth?! Every example we've seen of Lynn's data shows that he is drastically misrepresenting the original studies. I don't buy that reasoning. 100 lies doesn't get us closer to the truth than just one lie does. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:11, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
"Every example we've seen"? You are seriously claiming that he's misrepresented hundreds of studies and that his conclusions are thus unreliable? If his numbers were so far off as to change the results, surely someone would have said as much about IQ&tWoN -- surely it would have ruined the correlations between his IQ numbers and other measures, including international testing scores. Right now all I see is bickering at the margins about whether one study or another is representive, limited by sample size or year of testing, etc. -- along with a good bit of name calling. Until we see someone publish a rebuttal saying "no, the average IQ of sub Saharan Africans is actually XX", then all the evidence points towards the rank order Lynn found. --Rikurzhen 02:28, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
There are a couple of different-but-related issues here, I think. The first is Lynn's use of data. He does vacuum up IQ scores from a lot of different sources, without any consideration of contexts that the original researchers might have pointed out, and in the African cases, with a wide variety of tests done in situations often of considerable disadvantage to test-takers, that's significant. This extends to cases where original authors specifically do not think results should be used in the way Lynn uses them. The second issue is the broader one of the scores themselves, which are as you note consistent. However, this claim of low intelligence for African populations (a) does not accord with the experiences of a lot of people who have spent time in the areas involved (like me) and (b) does not accord with what we know of African culture history, where the data strongly indicate African capabilities comparable to those in other parts of the world. In many ways, this looks to me like something comparable to the Flynn effect - except across a cultural and environmental divide in space, rather than time. (One might note that Murray and Herrnstein, in _The bell curve_, evaluate the Flynn Effect in much the same way, on pp. 308-309: "…Whether one looks at the worlds of science, literature, politics, or the arts, one does not get the impression that the top of the IQ distribution is filled with more subtle, insightful or powerful intellects than it was in our grandparents' day... No one is suggesting, for example, that the IQ of the average American in 1776 was 30 or that it will be 150 a century from now…" ScottMacEachern 18:38, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
The vacuuming up of data is fine so long as we note (as we do) that there are caveats with the data in multiple respects, making them merely the best available estimate. On the second point: the African American vs Africans in Africa score difference appears to be fully or almostly fully accountable by environmental differences. It's actually the African American vs. European American gap that is mysterious. From what I've read about African scores, the well nourished Africans score in the low 80s (compare to 85 for A.A.s), whereas the malnourished score 15 or more points lower. On the Flynn effect, I don't think anyone can say with certainty what's going on, especially in a cross cultural context. These are all caveats for interpreting the data (a normal part of science), not reasons to doubt Lynn as a reputable source. --Rikurzhen 21:39, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
The practice of Wikipedia editors in adding caveats on Lynn's data does not, I think, make _Lynn_ a reputable source: from my point of view, his cavalier use of other people's data is not that of a reputable researcher. And I'd be interested in seeing data on teh correlation between nutrition and IQ scores in Africa, because I see no real patterning of that sort in the test score results. Given how poorly-documented the life-histories of most of these tested individuals are, you'd be hard-pressed to come to any conclusions on that point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ScottMacEachern (talk • contribs) 14:34, February 5, 2006
It is essential that we all distinguish the requirements of WP policies (WP:NPOV,WP:NOR,WP:V) versus the WP:RS guideline. It is the unpublished personal opinion of several editors that Lynn's work is inaccurate. This is not the same thing as being unreliable. The inaccuracy claim is subject to the policy triumverate -- cite published sources to back up such claims (an attempt has been made at this, but the citation may not be sufficient for all of the claims). The reliability question is handled by the guideline, and is the subject our opinions as editors, but the only choice is to use a source or not. Other scholars have used the IQ&tWoN data, and AFAIK the only published review of RDiI does not raise questions about it reliability. This should resolve our WP:RS question. (p.s. I misspoke, the nutrition/IQ work was about black children in Barbados, not Africa, but the IQ scores are the same. The citation is Galler, J. R., Ramsey, F., and Forde, V. (1986). A follow-up study of the influence of early malnutrition on subsequent development. Nutrition and Behavior, 3, 211–222. Please correct me if I misread it; it's been a while.) --Rikurzhen 23:28, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
The book is a trade book, not a scientific work. This criticism,[[26]] showing numerous direct errors in reporting the IQ scores, discredits the work. Ultramarine 23:31, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
Dienekes thinks Lynn is sloppy. How does that translate into being unreliable in the WP:RS sense? No, I reject the premise of your claim. I think its obvious now that Lynn's work satisifies the WP:RS criteria. --Rikurzhen 00:05, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Anyone with a small amount of money can publish a trade book. Not a reliable source.Ultramarine 00:08, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Not one single one of the points excluding Lynn from WP:RS that I listed above at Talk:Race and intelligence#Using Lynn can never conform with WP:RS has been shown an iota less on-point by anything that has occurred in this talk page. It is utterly laughable to claim that Lynn even remotely approaches WP:RS by any standard. Widely and conclusively refuted, extremist, and fraudulent writing isn't something we just "assume to be correct, in bulk (once all the fraud is removed)"! Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:13, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I'll copy and paste myself I don't know about Lynn's politics (honestly I just don't know), but I don't see how he could possibly hope (as an academic) to get away with any kind of scholarly misbehavior with regard to reporting something like the average IQ of whole continents (which would require the averaging of many dozens of reports), and at present count the reviews are 1/1 positive (albeit by a person who agrees with him on many controversial questions). A report doesn't need to be peer reviewed before publication if review happens afterwards. (This is more than most newspapers articles get.) The existence of derivative work and the inconsistency of criticisms of the IQatWoN data sets suggests that he is not thoroughly debunked. As for the actual values -- I don't think we can rule anything out at face value when it comes to people living in extreme environments. --Rikurzhen 03:20, 31 January 2006 (UTC) In short, something written on random websites that show evidence of selective citation -- not reliable; books written by professors emeritus that are later treated as scholarly publications by other peer reviewed works -- reliable. The fact that the values (ostensible come from peer reviewed scholarly works and then) are being reprinted/reused in peer reviewed scholarly works should be the end of the discussion on WP:RS. --Rikurzhen 18:47, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
More on that point. A graph of IQ scores from IQ&tWoN plotted against time. Of course this isn't all the data in RDiI, but don't see how one can contend that Lynn is just making this stuff up. --Rikurzhen 02:34, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Raven's Progressive Matrices to IQ

[Moved from Rikurzhen's talk page] Kamin 1995 argues the Raven's Progressive Matrices, which was used for a significant amount of the African studies, cannot be converted to IQ scores:[27]

The test's developer, John Raven, repeatedly insisted that results on the Progressive Matrices tests cannot be converted into IQs. Matrices scores, unlike IQs, are not symmetrical around their mean (no "bell curve" here). There is thus no meaningful way to convert an average of raw Matrices scores into an IQ, and no comparison with American black IQs is possible.

On the otherhand, all measures of human cognitive ability tend to strongly intercorrelate with each other, etc. (I see GNXP covers Frey and Detterman 2003 that correlates SAT with IQ and RPM with SAT.[28]) Do you know the answer to this?--Nectar 22:39, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK, RPM is commonly used as an "IQ test", and is the regarded as being the most g loaded of all tests. I remember that Thompson and Gray (2004) in NRN[29] mentions RPM briefly. --Rikurzhen 22:41, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
This looks to be a paper that dicusses what RPM measures: Carpenter, P. A., Just, M. A. & Shell, P. What one intelligence test measures: a theoretical account of the processing in the Raven Progressive Matrices Test. Psychol. Rev. 97, 404–431 (1990). --Rikurzhen 22:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
See also Raven's_Progressive_Matrices --Rikurzhen 22:47, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Rikurzhen just submitted the summary: RPM is definitely an IQ test in that it is strongly g loaded. High g-loading is only part of what makes an IQ test an IQ test. Please recall that Kamin's objection was that the Raven was not "symmetrical around [the] mean". Jensen similarly reports that even and correctly-sloped gradations are critical in a "power" type IQ test like the Raven. However, Jensen also reports that the Raven test is in fact evenly graded and correctly sloped (according to his investigations and regardless of what John Raven might have had to say about it) and that therefore it is exemplary as an IQ test in at least that regard. Thousands of other citations, of course, can be found that refer to the Raven as an IQ test. I wonder if Kamin ever published his revelatory finding that it is actually not an IQ test. I would think the rest of the differential-psychology world would be very interested in hearing that about a test that they have been relying on for decades and for thousands of differential general-ability, learning-disability, ADHD, autism-spectrum, schizophrenia-spectrum, personality, and other investigations. --hitssquad 00:10, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I haven't read what Jensen has to say about Raven's but the shape of the distribution is a product of the construction of the test. The shape of the distribution of g is unknowable. Even with an non-normal distribution, it should be possible to make a Ravens to IQ conversion. --Rikurzhen 00:13, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

What we can know

We certainly can rule out a priori that Pygmies or Aborigines have an average IQ in the 50s-60s (if that means "general mental capability", rather than "performs on some culturally-mismatched test X"). They have rich mythological and folklore systems and traditions, elaborate ritual practices, highly tuned skills for the hunter-gatherer lifestyle they live, for the Pygmies especially, an amazingly complex musical tradition, many are highly multi-lingual. None of this is remotely plausible for an 8-10 y.o.'s mental capabilities (which is what the purported IQ amounts to). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:59, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

All we can measure is IQ, brain size, reaction time, etc. I find the 60s IQ scores plausible. If sub-Saharan Africans have IQs around 70, then anything seems plausible. None of the things you mentioned requires the ability to do complex mental operations, only rote training/memory. But I already removed the Pygmy/Bushman IQ scores on the hunch that those measurements have the greatest uncertainty. We can remove the Australian Aboriginee scores too if you suspect the same. --Rikurzhen 05:37, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

The data we need

A extensive review/summary/critique of Lynn's book --Rikurzhen 07:13, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Fascinating to see a discussion of Lynn's research ethics with no mention of Kenneth Owen at all... ScottMacEachern 16:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


From Lynn (in press)
Population IQ Majority Population Minority Population Total Population
# Studies # Countries # Studies # Countries # Studies # Countries Sample
East Asian 105 59 5 42 7 101 12 128,322
European 99 93 36 6 6 112 42 175,950
N America 100
NC & E Europe 99
Portugal 97
SE Europe 92
Arctic 91 15 2 15 2 2,690
Southeast Asian 87 11 6 7 3 13,433
Pacific Islander 29 10 7,729
Maori 90 15 1
Non-Maori 85 14 9
Amerindian 86 11 5 21 2 63 7 37,304
West/South Asian 84 37 15 61 9 98 24 65,855
Near East 89
India 82
Sub-Saharan Africa 115 28 387,286
Africa 67 57 18
Non-Western 71 14 6 2 1
Western 85 54 3
Khosian 54 3 1
Australoid 62 24 1 5 1 29 2 4,785
World 90 620 100 813,778

Broken reference for Lynn

The Lynn 1991 reference near the end of Expert opinion is broken. It should be either 1991a or 1991b, but I'm not sure which one. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 21:38, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Race

As discussed previously, the discussion of Race is very different and POV compared to main article. I have previously mentioned many 2005 peer-reviewed articles that are critical. Ultramarine 12:46, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Um, AFAIK those studies aren't specifically in the race article either, but their arguments can be subsumed under the "Some scientists argue that common racial classifications are not meaningful" line. --Rikurzhen 16:50, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
That is certainly very different from the discussion and objections mentioned in the Race article.Ultramarine 17:53, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
At this point, I'm the proximal source of a great deal of the race article. Either you're misunderstanding or I'm ignorant of some specific point. A great deal of the detail is unimportant for this article. I could expand the section in this article to any arbitrary size, but what we have now is a nice, concise, and precise description. I have a few things that might make it better, but no time now. --Rikurzhen 18:08, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

East Asians and Jews in America have higher incomes...

But South-East Asians and South Asians don't ? Stated in the 'highly successful minorities' section.

But according to this http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/censr-17.pdf

- Ethnic Japanese and Asian Indians (south asians) are the highest earners. - Filipinos (south-east asians) make the same amount of money as Koreans.

I am not editing because I am not a registered user but I hope you don't ignore the actual census data just because it doesn't fall into your neat little racial hierarchy.

P.S. The selective immigration argument is true for most asian groups. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.95.95.26 (talk • contribs) 06:11, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

You can feel free to contribute even if you don't have an account. Just back up any changes with a back-up post on the talk page (as you did above), if you feel that's necessary. -Grick(talk to me!) 07:19, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
It says Filipino families make more than Korean families -- $65,189 vs. $47,624. Korean families are not only below the Asian American family average of $59,324, they are below the general American family average of $50,046. But Filipino males earn $35,560, and Filipino females earn $31,450, vs. Korean males earning $38,776, and Korean females earning $28,403. (Korean males earn more then Filipino males, but the situation is reversed for females.) Poverty rates are 6.3% for all Filipinos as individuals vs. 14.8% for all Koreans as individuals.
Here is an explanation that potentially ties it all together: 1) Filipino emigration is more selective than Korean emigration, and this is because of the reduced opportunities (and it is generally true for all nations that the less economic opportunity, the greater the emigration-selectivity for potential economic outperformers) for high-ability persons in the Philippines vs South Korea (South Korean national income is so high right now, it is essentially a First World nation; the Philippines is still an impoverished Third World nation); 2) Filipinos tend to have large families and so need larger incomes -- this puts extra pressure on the males to outperform economically and puts extra pressure on the females to not only do the same when they do have full-time jobs, but also to have full-time jobs at all vs. staying home with the kids -- the Korean families, being smaller, have less pressure on the income earners in the family to outperform, and the females have less pressure to engage in full-time work at all vs. stay at home with the kids (so more Filipino families than Korean families have double incomes); and 3) More Koreans are single since they have less desire than Filipinos to start families -- singles can exist in poverty (as defined in America for Americans) in more comfort and safety than can families, so there is less pressure on them to outperform economically than there would be if they were in families.
It is interesting that Filipino-American males, despite all of these factors working to the contrary, still earn thousand less per year on the average than Korean-American males. One might wonder why until one examines the average IQ's and economically-important personality factors of various nations and races. --hitssquad 10:25, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
1. But the Filipinos in America are more recent immigrants than the Koreans. Most of the Koreans immigrated in the eighties when Korea was relatively poor. Recent immigrants have a huge disadvantage over older immigrants. 2. Any evidence to back up the assertion that Filipinos in America have larger families than Koreans and that more Koreans are single ?.
Also you fail to explain the Indian males who have the highest incomes of all asian groups despite being recent immigrants from a completely different culture. They are supposedly from a nation with an avg IQ of 81 (lower than the supposed avg African American IQ 85). Am I to believe that they have an IQ that is a standard deviation below the american norm and yet their diaspora in America performs as if it was a standard deviation above the american norm ? The standard deviation for IQ is generally assumed to be around 15( Wechsler scale uses 15, Stanford-Binet uses 16), then this would indicate an extraordinary level of selection the average Indian in America would have to be more intelligent than 99 out of 100 other Indians, (given that America's immigration process is more nepotistic than meritocratic it would have to be even higher for males). This is extremely unlikely.

65.95.95.196 08:28, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

"Strong racist bias is involved in data selection and manipulation"

The article states that critics argue that "strong racist bias is involved in data selection and manipulation". How might it be possible to determine racist bias? --hitssquad 18:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

By citation, as in the article. Please try to remember WP:NOR! (Kamin is a an actual reliable source, who is cited to this effect; Hitssquad's wishful thinking that Lynn met WP:RS doesn't make it so). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 18:56, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

The article states "Much of the evidence currently cited is based on IQ testing in the United States." The problem with any consideration of race in the US is that the people in the US are not a random sample of any population. Descendents of slaves are here only because their parents were coerced to come to the US. That coercion cannot help but have affected the sample in ways that would take substantial study to determine. Native Americans suffered a 95% die-off because of imported European diseases, so every Native American alive today is a descendent of that 1/20th of the original population. It's not obvious that a resistance to European diseases was randomly distributed amongst the population. And the absolute killer of randomness is that everyone else is self-selected at different rates. For example, the Irish were strongly selected because of the Irish Potato Famine and (at the time) free immigration into the US. The Irish used to be considered a race distinct from the British. US data regarding race is completely worthless no matter whether you use the best or worst definitions of race.

"There are overwhelming confounding factors disregarded by Lynn"

The article states that critics argue that "There are overwhelming confounding factors disregarded by Lynn". What are the confounding factors that critics claim Lynn disregards? --hitssquad 18:03, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

"Lynn's...use of South African data based, in part, on an extrapolation of a "bogus" average Black IQ of 75 from a non-IQ test"

The article states that critics instance Lynn's...use of South African data based, in part, on an extrapolation of a "bogus" average Black IQ of 75 from a non-IQ test. The article then cites Leon Kamin's 1995 Scientific American review of The Bell Curve. In that article, Kamin mentions an IQ-75 study cited by Lynn for the IQ of Zambia, but none for the IQ of South Africa. (As has been explained repeatedly in the edit summaries and on Lulu's Talk page, that was one of the reasons the statement has been repeatedly removed from the article.) None of the four studies cited by Lynn for his estimation of the South African national IQ that he used in his 2002 book IQ and the Wealth of Nations resulted in Black IQ's of 75, and none were Flynn-Effect corrected to 75.[30] Why is Kamin's review-article being cited for this statement in the Wiki article?

How is it "bogus" to calculate an IQ score from a raw test score? Why is the name of the test, the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices, not mentioned by name in the statement? How is the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices a "non-IQ test"? Do psychologists generally consider the Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices to be a "non-IQ test"? Why is the Zambian or South African score the only instance in thsi article where the Raven's use is contested, despite the fact that Lynn cited it dozens of studies employing it in his determination of national IQs for his 2002 book IQ and the Wealth of Nations[31]? Shouldn't the Raven be contested equally wherever it is used? --hitssquad 18:32, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

What Kamin writes is: Lynn chose to ignore the substance of Crawford-Nutt's paper, which reported that 228 black high school students in Soweto scored an average of 45 correct responses on the Matrices--HIGHER than the mean of 44 achieved by the same-age white sample on whom the test's norms had been established and well above the mean of Owen's coloured pupils.
Despite Hitssquad's repeated claims, Soweto is in South Africa, not in Zambia. However, I guess reading it again, the 75 extrapolation isn't specifically about those Soweto students, so maybe that sentence should be rephrased. As to "bogus", that's the word Kamin used, and that's why it is quoted as such. The reason we use Kamin's review article rather than Hitssquad's original research in this article is because of WP:NOR.
On the broader matter, Lynn's selectivity in hand-picking support, falsification of data, and ignoring of confounding factors are precisely what the few examples provided help illustrate. If Hitssquad were to read a sentence or two past the phrases he claims not to understand, s/he would encounter direct illustrations.
In general, as so very many time earlier in this talk page, it continues to be the case that taking the average of many "studies", each of which is individually falsified by Lynn, does not suddenly produce "reliable" results through the magic of summation and division. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 18:52, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Since that quote is taken out of context, it cannot correctly be said that that is what Kamin wrote. As of right now, that quote is in the article. It is taken out of context and also seems to imply that Lynn cited the Crawford-Nutt paper in either IQatWoN or AWoD or both. I know that Lynn did not cite it in IQatWoN. I know that Lynn did not cite it for the AWoD South African IQ scores, because it does not appear in the list of 16 references for South African IQ data that appear on Rikurzhen's Talk page[32].

As to "bogus", that's the word Kamin used If the pulled quotes are scientifically meaningless, why are they being used in a science article? --hitssquad 20:18, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Why is Lynn being used in a science article, for god sake?! Kamin publishing in Scientific American is certainly a lot better WP:RS that Lynn's self-published white-supremacist tract. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 20:28, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Ah... looking through Hitssquad's edit history, I think I get some insight into this. E.g. take a look at [33]. It gives a good sense of where s/he's coming from. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:16, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Why is Lynn being used in a science article.... Lynn's results seem to be scientifically meaningful. If there is some evidence otherwise, please post it. --hitssquad 21:41, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

The neo-Nazi POV on Lynn's "research"

Please, editors, do take a look at Hitssquad's edit history, as with the Mengele difflink.[34] Other than the apologetics for the racism of Lynn and associates, many edits are quite literally Nazi apologetics and holocaust denial. I think it puts some perspective on her/his efforts to remove any criticisms of Lynn from the article. Additional notable edits: [35], [36], [37], [38], [39], [40] Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:32, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

What is Kamin's adjective

I have nothing against "IQ skeptic" personally, in describing Kamin. Though "IQ researcher" also doesn't seem unreasonable. But maybe more neutral would be simply to call him a "psychologist", which is his plain academic title. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:15, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I think it's important to note that Kamin has a history of criticism of IQ -- "IQ skeptic" seems like the shortest possible way to describe that. I think the same sort of qualification would be appropriate for a positive comment from Rushton, for example. IQ research makes it sound like he woudl be the kind of person to go to an ISIR (international society of itnelligence research?) meeting. If Gottfredson came out with that kind of critisism of Lynn, then "researcher" would be a good adjective for her. --Rikurzhen 22:15, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
Like I said, I'm fine with the characterization. I guess the reverter might have thought it implied Kamin doubted IQ as a measurable quantity at all, which is not true; but Kamin does doubt several aspects of IQ research (including g as a meaningfully unified factor rather than mathematical artifact, and heritability studies). But "skeptic" is neutral enough... something like "denier" might be POV. And someone can read Kamin's article if they want (though it looks to me like that article is in need of expansion; but presumably it will be improved with time). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 22:23, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
I was the one who did the revert, based on the Wikipedia stub on Leon Kamin, but also on this reference: [[41]]. It goes to show that Kamin did some legitimate research on his own, and while he doesn't deny IQ, he is skeptic about its inheritability, whether it be individually or racially. In that sense, "IQ skeptic" doesn't really nail it, "researcher", or "psychologist" would be a far better term, I would say. Because of his doubts regarding individual genetic inheritability of IQ, I would say he stands a bit apart from mainstream, granted. Sttil, I say "IQ skeptic" is inappropriate (for the reason stated above), but I will wait for feedback as I'm definitely not intent on starting an edit war here.Ramdrake 16:41, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
That Indiana U profile of him states he spends his time not as a researcher, but as a "professional reviewer and critic of intelligence studies, [criticizing the genetic argument and supporting] the environmental argument". It lists his "major contributions" as (1) being "one of the first" to publicly question the work of Burt, and (2) critizing the genetic argument. This seems to support the argument that he's very much on the skeptical side of the issue.--Nectar 22:43, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
So he is a 'heritability skeptic'? Maybe that's too much of a neologism... Arbor 08:58, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

cutting down the length

We've got three paragraphs to introduce two sentences. Can we move the details to footnotes and leave in its place a more concise summary? --Rikurzhen 00:34, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I've made use of the new m:cite.php functionality, migrated footnotes to <ref name=""></ref> calls, and tried to execute my suggestion. --Rikurzhen 09:24, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
Great job, Rikurzhen, of converting the reference style. I think this new capability is definitely a "win" overall in maintaining correct and coherent references/footnotes. There are still a couple drawback in the new style. Chiefly to my mind is the possibility of masking a reference text if multiple ref tags with the same "name" attribute exist. See a baby example at: User talk:Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters/Ref practice. Not the end of the world, but something to keep in mind. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 01:58, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Regarding migrating single references to footnotes, I'm concerned having 70 footnotes makes it impractical for readers to click on them. This seems to deprive readers from being able to easily see that statements are referenced and to evaluate their source, as well as from being able to read the commentary provided by some footnotes.--Nectar 18:48, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

A good point for discussion. I was hoping that providing footnotes would hep achieve some of the micro/macro WP feel, so that people can ignore references if they don't care, but that what would just be a Author/Year cite previously can be further annotated in footnotes. It does add an extra mouse click for the reference checking group, but I was thinking it would be okay with them.
Also, right now I'm trying to make sure the references themselves are correct by making sure that the AYref template is used whenever possible. This will help us find orphaned references, which there appear to be quite a lot of. --Rikurzhen 22:18, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
I think having the references visable and up front allows each statement to be directly attributed to a known scientist and published source. I think the lack of visibility of footnotes that are one step away has a disproportionately large effect on the amount of faith the reader needs to maintain in WP's editorial process.--Nectar 07:57, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Whatever solution we arrive at, that certain should be our foremost goal (i.e. WP:V). In the abstract, I agree with you. I have two kinds of concerns. (1) Writing more than a certain number of AYref entires inline (e.g. 3) hurts readability. The first few footnotes exemplify this. While style is not a sufficient reason to not write something inline, the multiple citation notes are usually good candidates because the many papers cited often reflect a widely reported finding that is author and date invariant. (2) Any case where the author, date, or publication title would be salient should probably be and often is already written in the body text. Consider, for example, any case where the AYref is/was/should not enclosed in parentheses. Although not a sufficent reason for the use of footnotes, moving the parenthetical cites to footnotes has/should make it clear where this kind of usage is appropriate. So that when I actually read the text, I tend to find that at least some of the citation information (usually either the year of publication or the author) is already inline, and the AYref is redundant.
What I would recommend is that we look at each case individually. If author/date/publication details would be salient, then we should first consider writing them into the main text, and only if that's undesireable move them out of the footnote tag. For some single references, I think the fact that they are singular is a reflection of not bothering to cite more than one paper when in fact many alternative/additional papers exist. These I don't think need to be moved inline merely because they are singular. --Rikurzhen 21:43, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
Long story short -- we need a protocol for deciding whether to put a citation inline or in notes. --Rikurzhen 23:06, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

T-4 euthanasia program

I very much disliked the "said to be inspired by the American eugenics movement" bit when referencing the T-4 euthanasia program. Hitler and close associates specifically cited the American eugenics movement that forced sterilization upon the mentally inept as being the inspiration for their program. German translations of American eugenics journals and books were common reading amongst the Nazi party in the 30s. The wording previously used makes it seem as if it is only suggested that it is a possibility they were inspired. Whereas in actuality high ranking Nazi officials specifically said they were directly inspired by the American eugenics movement. Though my new wording may be strong, it actually communicates that this is the case.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Project12 (talk • contribs) 17:47, February 13, 2006

I tried to reword it further, mainly for conciseness. While we are there, when last we talked about his, nobody seemed to be a fan of the sentence about extermination of Jews, since as far as we were able to determine, the Nazis didn't actually argue for the extermination of say Jews based of their lower intelligence (as opposed to the T-4 programme). So if I am reading the tenor among the editors here right, the sentence can just go the way of the Dodo. But maybe I am misjudging it. I will tentatively remove the sentence. If anybody wants to fight for it, please put it back in. We can talk about it here later. Arbor 20:12, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Your rewording looks excellent to me. --Scandum 14:44, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

'Hispanic' USA IQ

Have there been any possible explanations for this? Particularily in regards to the genetic/culture arguments. How is it possible that, people of highly mixed genes between native Americans (average IQ of 90 in the USA, no?) and Spaniards (average IQ of 98 according to IQ/Wealth of Nations?) score around 90? Particularily when considering the hybrid vigor aspect. I don't understand why the US Hispanic average is lower than 95. Peoplesunionpro 18:41, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Possibly it's a case of outbreeding depression since hybrid vigor is rare. Most hispanics have only 10 to 20% european ancestry though I didn't look that up.--Scandum 21:59, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Just speaking off-hand, it's not a necessary assumption that indigenous North and Central Americans would have the same mean genetic IQ. East Asians and South East Asians, for example, demonstrate varying mean IQs.--Nectar 22:15, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
The Lynn/RDiI puts "Native American" IQ around 87. If Scandum's admixture estimate is correct, then 98*.2 + 87*.8 = 89.2. There also seems to be a large difference between Native American scores on verbal versus spatial abilities, with much lower average verbal than spatial scores. Plus all of the other caveats one can imagine. --Rikurzhen 03:19, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

references update

i've been trying to synchronize the inline citations and reference page. after a lot of manual fixing, i now have a lists that are probably enriched for harder things to fix than just typos. i suspect that most of these can be pretty easily fixed, but i may not be able to do all of them. --Rikurzhen 06:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

inline citations without matching references

main page

  • Garrett_1964
  • Garrett_1967
  • Jensen_1985
  • Lynn_1991
  • Lynn_et_al._1991
  • Lynn_et_al._1998
  • Osborne_1962
  • Osborne_1978
  • Scarr_and_Weinberg_1987

I've used html comments to remove these from the text. If someone knows the source for them, they can be easily restored. I believe this makes the main page up-to-date wrt references. --Rikurzhen 23:16, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

full list

Bachman 1970 Brill 1936 Carretta 1995 Eswaran et al. 2005 Garrett 1964 Garrett 1967 Gottfredson 2001 Grudnik and Kranzler 2001 Helland et al 2003 Ho et al. 1980 Jensen 1985 Jensen 1998 Levinson 1958 Levinson 1960 Lieberman et al. 1992 Loehlin et al. 1992 Lucas et al. 1996 Lynn 1991 Lynn and Shigehisa 1991 Lynn et al. 1991 Lynn et al. 1998 Montie and Fagan 1998 Nichols 1972 Osborne 1962 Osborne 1978 Rushton 1995 Rushton and Jensen 2005 Rushton et al. 2000 Ryan et al. 1996 Scarr and Weinberg 1987 Stephens et al. 2001 Templeton 2002 Vernon 1982 Vincent 1966

references without matching inline citations

Andreasen et al. 1993 Anonymous 2000 Backman 1972 Block 1995 Boas 1938 Breslau et al. 2001 Buj 1981 Carretta and Ree 1995 Chan and Lynn 1989 Dickens and Flynn 2001 Dickens and Flynn 2002 Dolan 1997 Dolan 2000 Flynn 1984 Flynn 1987 Flynn 1999 Gottfredson 2004 Haier et al. 1995 Jensen 1970 Jensen 1980 Jensen 1982 Jensen 1992 Jensen 2000 Kenny 2002 Lamason et al. 2005 Levinson 1959 Loehlin 1992 Lombardo 2002 Lucas et al. 1992 Lynn 1978 Lynn 1991b Lynn 1994 Lynn 1997 Lynn 2002 Lynn 2004 Lynn and Hattori 1990 Lynn and Owen 1994 Lynn et al. 1984 Lynn et al. 2005 Michael 1988 Miller 1994 Murray 2002 Murray and Herrnstein 1994 Osborne 1961 Pinker 2002 Raz et al. 1993 Romanoff 1976 Rowe and Rodgers 2002 Rowe et al. 1994 Rushton 1998 Rushton 1999 Rushton 2001 Rushton 2002 Rushton and Ankney 1996 Rushton and Jensen 2005b Rushton and Osborne 1995 Rushton and Skuy 2000 Rushton et al. 1983 Ryan et al. 1991 Sarich and Miele 2004 Shigehisa and Lynn 1991 Tobach and Proshansky 1976 Weinberg et al. 1992 Weyher 1999 Wickett et al. 1994 Willerman et al. 1991