Talk:Nations and IQ

Is the Lynn and Vanhanen map WP:UNDUE?

I'm concerned that the map in the section "Lynn and Vanhanen" may be WP:UNDUE given the forceful repudiation of the methodology used to construct it presented in e.g. footnote 6[[1]] and footnote 22[[2]]. While the text of the article makes clear that the underlying assumptions used to construct this map are highly questionable, "a picture is worth a thousand words" as the saying goes, so our readers may come away with the wrong impression on the WP:WEIGHT of scientific consensus here. Thoughts? Generalrelative (talk) 17:36, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

As I wrote, I believe the map illustrates properly the article. It never claimed to represent a scientific consensus. Veverve (talk) 17:10, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

@Veverve: Thanks for engaging here. And you're right that the map caption did not explicitly state "this is scientific consensus." But that wasn't what I argued above. How would you respond to the point I raised that including a map which represents the findings of a minority view within the field may leave our readers with a mistaken impression of the WP:WEIGHT of scientific consensus? After all, those scholars who have expressed reason to believe the map's data is unsound have not (to my knowledge) produced maps of their own which we could use to contextualize Lynn and Vanhanen's. Indeed, if scholars have reason to believe such a map cannot reliably be constructed with extant data then they cannot produce such a map. Generalrelative (talk) 17:23, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I'll also note here, in case anyone who happens upon this thread is not yet aware, that per WP:ONUS: "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content." I'm open to being persuaded by policy and reliable sources, but consensus will have to precede restoration of the disputed map. Generalrelative (talk) 17:31, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I understand your concern, but if the illustration of a study or idea gives it undue weight, are we for example to remove all the diagrams of synoptic theories and only leave those which are believed by the majority? Are we to remove all illustrations from Superseded theories in science or Geocentric model? An illustration does not give any undue weight, only the the context, the text of the article, can. 17:41, 18 August 2020 (UTC)Veverve (talk)

Good point. However the key issue, as I see it, is context. In an article on the Geocentric model, an illustration of this model is perfectly appropriate. Same goes for Superseded theories in science. But in an article from which the reader will likely be expecting a balanced synopsis of current scientific understanding (and in particular one on such a fraught topic as this) extra care in presenting due WP:WEIGHT is crucial to serving Wikipedia's mission. That's why, for instance, we wouldn't expect to see an illustration of the geocentric model in the article Earth. If we go by "a picture is worth a thousand words" as a rule of thumb (I don't see any policy on this, but if anyone knows of one, I'd welcome them to weigh in), then including Lynn and Vanhanen's map radically distorts the WP:BALANCE of the article. Generalrelative (talk) 18:15, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

The white supremacist POV of Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen -- specifically, the view that there's a genetic difference in intelligence along racial lines -- is a fringe view and is so recognized on Wikipedia (see [3]). Like any fringe view, per WP:FRINGE it should not get undue attention. The disputed map would have been the only visual in the entire article, serving the purpose of illustrating a viewpoint that's outside the mainstream and debunked by scientists. A glance at the map (in which all of sub-Saharan Africa is colored red or orange to indicate low-IQ) clearly shows the racial bias of the authors. Giving attention to such drivel violates WP:NPOV. NightHeron (talk) 18:39, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

• Exclude the map. I agree with Generalrelative that the map is likely to mislead a naive reader, per WP:WEIGHT. Readers interested in more details can click the links to other articles that go into more depth. The concept of IQ in general has a long history of being very misunderstood by the general public. In my opinion the map perpetuates some of those misunderstandings. My understanding from looking at the article's edit history and talk page archives is that the map was a controversial issue in the past and was removed by consensus. See Talk:Nations and intelligence/Archive 1#Prevent the deletion of the map showing average IQ scores of nations. As far as I know there has never been a consensus to restore it. Sundayclose (talk) 18:41, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
• Delete as a blatant attempt to smuggle in racism in sheep's clothing. In fact I am astonished that this article even exists. It tells you a lot more about the inherent bias of IQ tests if every country (except micronstates, perhaps, because of small sample size) does not score exactly 100. It gives pseudoscience a bad name! --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:56, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
• Exclude - In addition to what's already been said, Commons is infested with hoax data on race and IQ. I think this might be partly due to a lack of decent admins and one or two especially tenacious sock puppets, but it's also due to a policy loophole. I am not the first to notice this, but when I raised this issue at Commons, the response lead me to believe that Commons is a very broken site. Anyway, the most recent image was uploaded by a true WP:SPA, but I don't know if this is another sock or not. The end result it the same. It doesn't mean the data is necessarily fake, but the goal with all these maps and images is to normalize and promote trashy racist pseudoscience as legitimate. Grayfell (talk) 20:52, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
• Exclude, particularly as if it's the first image in the article, people on web will see it as the representative image for the page on Page Previews. Why are we giving these views airtime in the first place? We need a very clear WP:FRINGE-compliant lead when most of the attention on this topic is from eugenicists and fascists with bullshit stats on IQ. — Bilorv (talk) 22:58, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
• Exclude for reasons already given. --John Maynard Friedman (talk)

Delete or merge

Bilorv: I very much agree that this article, including the lead, needs to be to be overhauled in order to bring it into compliance with WP:FRINGE policy. Unfortunately it seems that we're giving these views airtime in the first place because this article exists. I would support another AfD, seeing as the first one was dismissed because of a disruptive nominator, not the substance of the argument. Generalrelative (talk) 16:35, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

One possibility would be to propose AfD for this article along with merging it into Race and intelligence, on the grounds that the fringe POV that it's meaningful to compare countries according to IQ (which promoters of that POV equate to cognitive ability) is really a slightly disguised version of the POV that it's meaningful to compare races according to intelligence (what Friedman above calls a blatant attempt to smuggle in racism in sheep's clothing). If we want to do this, it would be good to first find RS that explicitly say that country/region comparisons in this case boil down to race comparisons.

Also, AfDs often result in a consensus to keep on the grounds that (1) even a fringe POV is notable if it's influential and widely discussed (and in fact Wikipedia has articles on creationism, climate change denial, and alien abduction), and (2) a bad article can be improved by editing, so that's not grounds for deletion. That's basically why the article Race and intelligence survived AfDs four times. I'm not arguing that it's necessarily a mistake to propose this article for AfD. I'm just suggesting that if we do so, we should be prepared to argue (1) that there is little interest in national comparisons except insofar as they boil down to racial comparisons, and (2) that the content should therefore be merged into Race and intelligence. NightHeron (talk) 18:10, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

That makes sense, thanks. I suppose then that the best way forward is to try to remove WP:PROFRINGE here as much as possible as a form of harm reduction. Generalrelative (talk) 19:09, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

<edit conflict>

I have inserted a subsection break above because I suggest we need to wrap up the image question before we move on to broader questions.

I agree with NightHeron, an AFD will fail again, nothing has changed to make it any more likely to succeed and may even lead to even more entrenched positions. The two articles are clearly forks of the same thesis so an RFC proposing a merge is far more likely to succeed and having one article rather than two gives less room for gaming the system. I strongly urge that a combined article be called "Aaaaaa and Intelligence Quotient" because there is no metric that can be applied to any and every population worldwide that measures general intelligence. I perform comfortably on IQ tests because of my class, climate, colour, parentage and educational background. Put me in the rainforest or the outback and I would be dead within the week. To call any article "X and Intelligence" is a blatant NPOV violation from the first two words. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:41, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Two subsections giving credence to a promoter of a fringe POV seems undue

Heiner Rindermann has a long history of promoting fringe views on race and intelligence. He was one of the main figures discussed at length in the recent RfC on race and intelligence at WP:FTN [4]. This article gives extensive coverage to his "research" and his views - two subsections.

I find it ironic that Rindermann used the TIMSS (among other similar studies) to make claims about low IQ (which to him means low intelligence) in Africa. In fact, the first TIMSS study, conducted in 1995, resulted in a lot of consternation in educational circles in the US, because at the eighth grade level American students performed very badly. But the discussion was entirely about deficiencies in US education. To the best of my recollection no one suggested that the US is a low-IQ country (although such suggestions have been made more recently in connection with the 2016 election of Trump).

Another irony is that one of the common criticisms of Wikipedia (see WP:GLOBAL) is that we pay too much attention to the US and too little to the rest of the world. However, in this case, when countries with supposedly low cognitive intelligence are being discussed, we seem to be ignoring the US.

Giving credence to anti-Africa racial bias violates WP:FRINGE and WP:GLOBAL. NightHeron (talk) 12:59, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. In my view this article still has some serious WP:WEIGHT issues, and I believe you've clearly described one of them.

I will add that the inclusion of specific numbers for the supposed average IQ scores of various nations (as recently brought up at Talk:Race_and_intelligence#Edit_war) seems to me WP:UNDUE as well, since the methods used for acquiring these numbers have been dismissed as unsound by reputable scientists. Generalrelative (talk) 19:46, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree that this article has many major problems. Here are a few that leapt to my eyes in the lead and Sections 1 and 2:

* The lead states in wikivoice that Hunt, Wicherts, and Rindermann have focused on identifying potential national differences in cognitive ability. In reality, the notion that IQ differences are the same as differences in cognitive ability is widely disputed. Many scientists have argued that IQ tests, if they measure anything intrinsic at all (other than the ability to take IQ tests), measure only one narrow type of intelligence. In any case, this article's acceptance of the assumption of Rindemann and others that IQ = cognitive ability is in clear violation of WP:NPOV.

* The "Background" section describes only the POV of Rindermann, Hunt, and others who claim that differences in level of industrial development are partially explained by differences in average cognitive ability between nations. This is a fringe theory, because in this context claims of ability difference between nations are thinly disguised claims of differences between races, which, according Lynn, Rindermann, Nijenhuis, Vanhanen and other authors who are extensively cited in this article, are at least in part genetic. The racial nature of the theory will become apparent to readers when they read further in the article and find that the "low-IQ" regions of the world are said to be Africa and to a lesser extent Latin America.

* I agree with you that stating numerical values for the claimed IQ's of different countries gives undue weight to numbers that are broadly viewed as meaningless, except by certain fringe writers such as Lynn and Rindermann.

* A huge amount of text - eight paragraphs spanning four subsections, starting with "In 2009 Jelte M. Wicherts..." - is almost entirely devoted to uncritically quoting and paraphrasing the work of Rindermann, Te Nijenhuis (another promoter of fringe views on race), and Wicherts/Dolan/van der Maas. Recall that these authors identify IQ with intelligence, and most of them claim that differences between nations have at least partly genetic causes. The only disagreement that is discussed (in two different places) is whether the African average IQ should be taken as 67 (Lynn/Vanhanen), 75 (Rindermann), or 82 (Wicherts/Dolan/van her Maas). There's one sentence citing Wicherts/Dolan/van der Maas as saying that their smaller claimed IQ difference is likely to have environmental rather than genetic causes. But except for that sentence the message in wikivoice is that Rindermann, as a compromise between the two values, could well be correct. There is something deeply offensive about white European or North American writers debating whether Africans are mentally extremely inferior, very inferior, or only somewhat inferior to us Westerners. This might be why the SPLC singled out this article along with Race and intelligence (which has since been drastically edited) as places where Wikipedia gives credence to white supremacist POVs.

* The next subsection, titled "Other indicators of cognitive ability", uncritically describes Rindermann's view about low IQ in national comparisons correlating with "more qualitative criteria", such as "behavioral irrationality... Examples of this irrationality include magical thinking, anthropomorphous thinking, and excessive use of cruelty." The assumption that the supposedly low-IQ Africans are guilty of "magical thinking" and "excessive use of cruelty" is based on what? Compared to whom? Compared to the current US President, whose magical thinking about COVID is responsible for the huge and rapidly rising mortality count in the US? What reliable sources say that the victims of European colonialism in Africa are guilty of more cruelty than the European colonists?? This passage in wikivoice reveals extreme bias that should not be the editorial stance of Wikipedia.

Thanks for alerting other editors that this article is badly in need of major editing. NightHeron (talk) 23:35, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for making this detailed list, and for explaining clearly why each of these points is problematic. I've reworded to address your bullet point #1, cut material to address #3, and cut the subsection discussed in #5 entirely (since it contained nothing that wasn't WP:PROFRINGE and apparently a bit of WP:OR too). Let's continue to address the other concerns you've raised and get this article up to basic WP:RS / WP:NPOV standards. Generalrelative (talk) 16:14, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

FYI I've done some more edits, eliminating the "Limitations and criticisms of the data sets" section (per WP:NOCRIT) along with several WP:PROFRINGE statements. I think the last major piece of work left to do is to shorten the section "International student assessment studies". Generalrelative (talk) 01:47, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for your edits. Concerning the section "International student assessment studies", my inclination would be to remove the whole section, which is entirely devoted to Rindermann. All of the sources are from Rindermann except for [15], which is Hunt commenting favorably on Rindermann. That Rindermann is promoting what amounts to a white supremacist POV is clear in the last paragraph of the section, which states that he "used the Human Development Index and skin brightness as, respectively, potential nurture-based and nature-based predictors of cognitive ability. After adjusting for the Flynn effect and using 2010 estimates as the baseline, his predicted IQ for the African majority nation samples varied between 68 and 78, with an average IQ of around 75." Although this is not written very clearly, a reader would probably read this as claiming that skin color contributes to a low IQ of around 75 for Africans. The long section suggests in wikivoice that the promoter of this POV is doing serious science.

Another issue is that "intelligence quotient" in the article title is unfortunate; "Nations and IQ" would be a better title. Many decades ago, there was a consensus of psychologists (led at one point by Cyril Burt) that IQ really measures intelligence. That consensus disappeared roughly a half-century ago. While many in the general public speak colloquially of high/low IQ as synonymous with high/low intelligence, that's not a scientific consensus. So the title of the article should not be suggesting in wikivoice that IQ really is a numerical measure of intelligence. I made a similar point before -- that expanding or rephrasing a standard term can change a neutral way of saying something ("winner of the World Series") to a misleading, inaccurate, or biased formulation ("champion of the world in baseball"). Taking the abbreviation IQ and turning it into a common noun is not neutral, just as referring to the DPR Korea (neutral formulation) as the "democratic people's republic of Korea" would be problematic. Removing capitalization converts a name into a factual (or false) description. NightHeron (talk) 03:38, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

With regard to the Rindermann section, I'd be down with it being completely rewritten. I just think that if this article is going to exist we will need to discuss this guy's work in some way, so we probably shouldn't cut it entirely.

I completely agree about the article title. We could definitely change it if there are no overwhelming objections. Does anyone object to "Nations and IQ"? In addition to the concerns NightHeron has raised, I find this title punchier as well. Generalrelative (talk) 04:52, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Good point. I have no problem with a short subsection that does not give the impression that scholars are favorably impressed by Rindermann's work. Hunt is an outlier in this respect. What I think the article needs is a well-sourced brief discussion of fallacies in the notion of intelligence comparisons between nations, which almost always are a thinly disguised form of white supremacy theory directed against Black people and/or immigrants. NightHeron (talk) 13:08, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

Another weird thing about this section is that it approvingly cites Rindermann in attaching significance to correlation between IQ tests and TIMSS, PIRLS, and PISA. But those tests did not purport to measure cognitive ability. Rather, TIMSS measures math knowledge, PIRLS measures reading, and PISA is a general test for the purpose of "evaluating educational systems" (from its Wikipedia page). Low TIMSS scores (for example, among US students tested) were interpreted as an indictment of the educational system, not as an indication of relative innate intelligence between nations. If anything, the correlations that Rindermann and like-minded fringe authors attach importance to suggest either that IQ tests also reflect the quality of schooling, or else perhaps that test-taking experience in an environment where standardized tests are important results in relatively good scores on any type of test. Or maybe something else. There's no reason to think that the correlation supports the notion that IQ testing gives a valid comparison of intelligence of different countries. NightHeron (talk) 14:05, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

I've removed the last paragraph of the "International student assessment studies" section due to lack of secondary sourcing and analysis. DFlhb (talk) 09:25, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Good call. Generalrelative (talk) 11:41, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 6 December 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Page moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jerm (talk) 17:21, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

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Nations and intelligence quotient → Nations and IQ – IQ is more commonly used than "intelligence quotient" so is preferable for the title per WP:COMMONNAME; the use of uncapitalized descriptive words implies in wikivoice that IQ really measures intelligence, a claim that is controversial, and so this should not be in the title, per WP:NPOVTITLE. Expanding an abbreviation using lower-case words can change it from neutral to non-neutral. For example, "DPR Korea" is neutral, but "democratic people's republic of Korea" would not be. NightHeron (talk) 16:36, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

• Support per NightHeron's rationale above. This seems quite straightforward to me. Generalrelative (talk) 18:02, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. "Nations and intelligence quotient" does not constitute a "claim in wikivoice", but a restatement of the title of the main article, Intelligence quotient. If the title of that main article is a NPOVTITLE, then the title of more granular articles should only change after an RM there. (I am not stating an opinion on whether the main article has an appropriate common name/NPOV title, just that it needs to change before a subpage does). — Goszei (talk) 23:17, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Is there any policy reason why the name has to be changed in Intelligence quotient before it can be changed here? There's a good reason to prioritize changing it here, namely, that IQ comparisons between countries have been used to cast aspersions on certain regions (especially Africa), races, and ethnicities. So the notion that someone's IQ is really their "quotient of intelligence" is particularly problematic in this article. Note that in the closely related article Race and intelligence the term "IQ" is used over 100 times whereas the term "intelligence quotient" occurs just twice, both times as a wikilink to the article by that name. NightHeron (talk) 02:17, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

We already have some "subpage" articles with IQ in their titles, such as Heritability of IQ and IQ classification. NightHeron (talk) 03:05, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

@NightHeron: Interesting, I didn't realize there were other pages that only used "IQ" in the title. I was primarily arguing from the WP:CONSISTENT criterion. I will strike my !vote, as I am now neutral on this requested move. — Goszei (talk) 05:50, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

• Support - Per above, this is simpler and more neutral for several reasons. Grayfell (talk) 00:52, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RfC on racial hereditarianism at the R&I talk-page

An RfC at Talk:Race and intelligence revisits the question, considered last year at WP:FTN, of whether or not the theory that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence is a fringe theory. This RfC supercedes the recent RfC on this topic at WP:RSN that was closed as improperly formulated.

Your participation is welcome. Thank you. NightHeron (talk) 23:18, 3 May 2021 (UTC)