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Wikipedia Weekly Episode 40

Wikipedia Weekly Episode 40 has been released!

.mp3 and .ogg versions can be found at http://wikipediaweekly.org/2008/01/24/episode-40-wikipedias-genetic-makeup/, and, as always, you can download past episodes and leave comments at http://wikipediaweekly.com/.

For Wikipedia Weekly — WODUP 05:39, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

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race and IQ and cross-cultural communication

Alun, if you don't mind my interjecting: I agree with you that we are all ignorant of things and should not be shy of admiting to that. But I think Aron was responding less to the accusation of ignorance and more to the insinuation of racism. Now, if I may make a cross-cultural suggestion (and being a native you certainly are welcome to correct me) - I don't really see any public conversation about race and racism in the UK. It is however a dominant public discussion in the US and has been my entire life. In the American context, to be accused of racism - which is understood not to be some rarified intellectual position, or just one's attachment to a particular discourse, but rather one's intention to lynch the person who served you lunch, if he whistles at a white woman; or one's intention not to serve food to people who have entered your restaurant because of the color of their skin ... in other words, this discussion about race and racism is very much tied to how people actually treat one another, and people's assumptions and expections about how they should be or will be treated ... the possibility that someone has just suggested you are a racist is very serious. It is a charge which, if true, justice demands be made ... but if not true, should be carefully avoided because the stakes are so high. Just my own two cents, but this may color Aron's reaction. Let me add to for what it is worth that i think you handled the situation well, appropriately. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:36, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

chuckle of the month

Did you read this?

I will say that both Slrubenstein and Alun/Wobble's logic and reasoning seem to be markedly different than that of the scientists and engineers whom I have worked with throughout my career. I can only speculate that Alun has a political agenda whereas Slrubenstein has a religious agenda. --Jagz (talk) 18:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't even know where to begin. All I can do is laugh! Slrubenstein | Talk 19:51, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh dear. Pathetic. Alun (talk) 06:03, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Your problem is you read books!! Now we understand the problem!! This guy is some joker! Slrubenstein | Talk 13:22, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Just to say hi

Because you're funny and smart. :) ←Gee♥Alice 06:37, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Single purpose editor

Maybe. But it is not against the rules. POV-pusher? Maybe. I think it is good of you to respond seriously to his points. But if you reach a point where you have nothing more to say or believe he doesn't listen, just stop. As long as he sticks to the talk page it doesn't matter. If he starts editing the article, then ... well, then he has to follow our content policies and we will see. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:32, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm Batman!

[1] Slrubenstein | Talk 11:00, 1 February 2008 (UTC) ;-)

Holy cow Batman, who'd have thought Robin was commie scum. Kerpow. Alun (talk) 13:58, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Have no fear, boy wonder. Democracy means everyone is entitled to their opinion, whether noble scientist cum crime-fighter or racist troll! Slrubenstein | Talk 17:11, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Guys, if Slrubenstein is Batman, and Alun is Robin, I wonder who The Joker could be? Any ideas? ;) --Ramdrake (talk) 20:02, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

LOL, you guys! I don't think there is just one Joker out there. There are many. ←Gee♥Alice 21:54, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Speedy deletion of Template:English ethnic group

A tag has been placed on Template:English ethnic group requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section T3 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a deprecated or orphaned template. After seven days, if it is still unused and the speedy deletion tag has not been removed, the template will be deleted.

If the template is intended to be substituted, please feel free to remove the speedy deletion tag and please consider putting a note on the template's page indicating that it is substituted so as to avoid any future mistakes.

Thanks. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:15, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

jensen

I write with all sincerity that you can't understand the topic of race differences in intelligence from a scholarly perspective without being familiar with Jensen's arguments. His peers take him very seriously, even those who disagree with him. In case you missed it, here's a bootleg copy of the most relevant chapter from his 1998 book -- http://home.comcast.net/~neoeugenics/jen12.htm A copy from a library would be even better as this one is missing most of the footnotes and all of the tables / figures. --Legalleft (talk) 08:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I also tried to explain to you that "race" is a non biological concept, and so "race" differences must be social. If you are unable to understand the basic genetic facts then it is clear that you are already decided "the truth" and incapable of being objective. Hereditary is not associated with "race" and "race" does not explain one's ancestral background at all well.[2] Alun (talk) 08:33, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

BTW - yes, Mike is correct, but the loose translation of his argument is that more data is better. I think any scientist would agree with that, and for MDs, asking for grand-parental ethnicity really seems to be the way to go given the data I've seen. However, even at scale, genotyping to infer ancestry is cost prohibitive, and you're getting diminishing returns as most populations aren't very admixed. --Legalleft (talk) 08:52, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

That reasoning doesn't hold. Consider -- are race differences in skin color social? Of course not -- BW differences in skin color are caused almost entirely by genetic factors if not totally and some of the casual variants have been identified -- there can be genetic differences between totally arbitrary groups (and I don't think race is *totally* arbitrary) -- which is different from *random* groups. My view about "the truth" is that the probabliity that the BW gap is 100% environmental is about 0.1 given all the data I've seen. It's nearly impossible that it's 100% genetic, but there isn't enough quantitative data to support any precise estimate. --Legalleft (talk) 08:39, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Skin colour is not a "racial" characteristic, or are you trying to claim that people form Australia and southern India are from the same "race" as people from Africa? Skin colour correlates with exposure to UV light, not all sub-Saharan African people have the same skin colour, for example, likewise people from southern Europe have a different skin colour to people from northern Europe. Indeed no such "racial" characteristic exists. In actual fact there are a great many African Americans with a very light skin colour derived from their European ancestors, but you would still call them black or African American. So skin colour is not arbitrary, but it is not a predictor of "race" in the biological sense, though it could be used as a predictor of ancestry to greater effect than "race" could, African Americans with a light skin colour could be assumed to have a greater degree of European ancestry for example. The black/white dichotomy is a socially constructed illusion derived from USA slavery and segregation, it has been studied extensively historically and is an artificial construct derived from the Jim Crow and anti-miscegenation laws, it erroneously assumes that black people and white people are biologically homogeneous, whereas this is not the case. In the USA there is significant African/Native American ancestry in the white "race" and there is significant European/Native American ancestry in the "black" race. To treat these groups as if they have exclusive ancestries is just, well daft, not to say willfully blind to the facts. As for the claim that "most populations aren't very admixed" this is clearly an incorrect statement when applied to the USA, 30% of "white" Americans have less than 90% detectable European ancestry and the overwhelming majority of African Americans have some European ancestry. White and black Americans are not split into two exclusive groups, but form a continuum of ancestry, with some white people having >50% African ancestry and some black people having as much as >90% European ancestry, the dichotomy is socially constructed. In fact you couldn't be more wrong. Alun (talk) 09:07, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Ack, my response was eaten. To paraphrase my lost reponse. I didn't say racial trait (which I take to mean defining of race) but rather race differences in a trait. There are many traits that vary by race (e.g. income and educational achievement), and there's no confusion about that distinction in most cases. However, the numerous physical/genetic traits that vary between races (however delinated or defined, perhaps arbitrarily) are evidence that it makes no sense to rule out a genetic cause to a race difference. That sholud be obvious. Also, of course admixture, but it's nothing compared to say Latin America. Of course all human groups are continous (excepting that there is enough population genetic structure to classify by geographic ancestry world wide and race in the US), but the topic is IQ data classified by race and so that's what's discussed and debated. Lastely, to the point of this thread, you really should read Jensen if you want to be able to summarize him accurately and to understand why people have written what they have. --Legalleft (talk) 09:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Are you deliberately ignoring the obvious? Black people in the US are supposed to be a "race" according to you. Also according to you this "race" is genetically different to the "white race" and it is this supposed "genetic" difference that has an influence on the IQ difference between these "races". But what I said is that from a biological point of view white and black people from a continuum of change. So actually there is no real genetic dichotomy between "white" and "black" citizens of the USA, a large number of so called "white" US citizens have a significant degree of recent African ancestry, the degree of European ancestry of black Americans is even more pronounced. This means that we are talking on the one hand about two social groups, white and black, membership of which is not determined genetically, and on the other hand between a continuum of genetic variation within the US citizenry, with some US citizens having a greater degree of African ancestry and others having a greater degree of European ancestry, both of these groups have a certain degree of indigenous American ancestry as well. You are still conflating an exclusive social group (whites) with a small proportion of the continuum that exists, and assuming that this represents a genetic dichotomy.[3] Alun (talk) 11:01, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps an abstract example is needed. Consider the two groups "attorneys" and "meat packers". Ignoring racial differences, there is an average IQ difference between these groups (exaggeratingly largely for the sake of discussion). This difference is to some degree due to genetic differences (perhaps as little as 0%, but probably some non-zero value). These groups are entirely social in construction, yet plausibly have intelligence differences caused by genetics. --Legalleft (talk) 09:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

This example is totally irrelevant though isn't it? A lawyer has been to university and has demonstrated that they have the ability to gain a degree. A lawyer has worked hard and studied in school and university. A meat packer has presumably not been to university and possibly left school at sixteen. So you compare the ability of a university graduate with that of someone with little more than a basic secondary education. How is this relevant? Lawyers and meat packers are not claimed to be natural groups, I have never heard a person claim that all lawyers are genetically more similar to other lawyers than they are to say medical doctors. I have never heard anyone claim that lawyers are a "race" and I have never heard anyone claim that meat packers are necessarily innately stupid. On average lawyers may perform better on IQ test scores (and who can say that this is not just because they have more experience in test situations, having greater experience in taking examinations etc.), on average they may have "better" intelligence genes (although we do not know of any such genes), but these are not "natural" groups and no one claims they are biologically differentiated. Furthermore there has not been any social exclusion against meat packers, they do not have a history of being enslaved, of being disenfranchised or of being denied equal opportunity of education for being meat packers. Indeed I'd bet that a significant proportion of lawyers would be less innately intelligent than meat packers (and still do better on IQ test scores), because they worked hard and attained a higher level of education, whereas a significant proportion of meat packers were not driven to work hard, even though their innate intelligence was greater. The point is that your example is not about groups that are claimed to be biologically distinct. Alun (talk) 11:01, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

There are longitudinal and multivariate studies on these kind of things, but I can't remember the details off the top of my head. --Legalleft (talk) 23:42, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

On a slightly different note I'd be interested to see how these ways of estimating "heritability" perform on things like memes. Take language for example, if I were to claim that French children are innately more able to learn French than, say English children, and tested it by giving French tests to English children who had say O level ability French, and French tests to French children, then examined the results to determine statistically what proportion of the difference between the two groups was "learned" and what proportion was "genetic", how well would this analysis show that the ability to learn French over English is 0% genetic? Just how good are these analyses that are supposed to be able to differentiate environment from heredity, and have any of them ever been tested on control traits such as language. Realistically they should be tested on traits known to be totally hereditary and traits known to be totally environmental for them to be considered scientifically valid. Alun (talk) 11:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

There are few very good online and freely accessible explanations of quantitative genetics methods, so it's hard to give you a complete answer. The methods look at how the variation in a phenotype relates to variation in genotype and variation in environment (= 1 - variation in genotype). Variation in genotype is taken from family relatedness of all degrees -- identical twins = 1, fraternal twins, full siblings = ~0.5, parent-child = 0.5, half-sibling, cousin, adopted siblings, adopted parents - children, etc. You fit linear models to those data to estimate various parameters. There are various models, but the simplest is phenotype = genotype + shared_environment + non-shared_environment. You can consider genotype as additive and non-additive genetic variance. These methods were largely developed to calculate the heritability of IQ, and so that's where the data is richest and allows the most unambigous interpretation. However, you have to keep in mind that all models are incomplete, including the behavioral genetic models. There's a molecular genetic technique to measure heritabilty, that's been applied to height with some success and it tends to confirm the results from the quantitative genetic models. All of those details related to calculating within-group variation -- they all involve family designs. Measuring between group variation is naturally much more tricky as the experimental designs are limited -- things like transracial adoption help, as do molecular genetic tests, which have been the least applied to this subject. --Legalleft (talk) 23:42, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

You claim that Jensen is not "fringe", I don't quite know what this is supposed to mean. Jensen is a notable person, and so has his own Wikipedia article. The question is not whether Jensen is "fringe" or not, but whether his "theories on race and intelligence" are fringe. One of the claims you make to support your idea that Jensen's ideas are not "fringe" is to claim that his 1969 paper "How much can we boost IQ and scholastic achievement" has been cited over 12 hundred times. For your claim to have any merit these cites would have to be in support of his proposition because we are talking about how mainstream his ideas are. In Jensen's Wikipedia article it states that Although his paper was widely cited, a random selection of 60 of these citations revealed that 29 of the papers were direct rebuttals or criticisms of Jensen's arguments, 8 cited the paper as an "example of controversy," 8 used it as a background reference. Only 15 citations of Jensen's paper were in any way supportive of his theories, and 7 of these 15 were only in relation to minor points. So six citations out of sixty support his ideas. If it is then accepted that this is a representative sample it would be fair to say that in actual fact only 10% of the people who cite his paper actually support his psition and at least 48% actively oppose it. I cannot conceive how this can possibly be taken to suggest that this paper is "mainstream" thought, if anything it suggests that these ideas are opposed by a majority in the academic community. Alun (talk) 08:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

First, because the word "fringe" is a term of art in the context of Wikipedia -- Wikipedia:Fringe theories. And whether 10% or 50% or 90% of citations support Jensen's conclusions is largely irrelevant, so long as it's clear that (1) a substantial number do and (2) the total volume of discussion is huge compared to other single figures in the field. Second, obviously the paper metrics are crude, but the provide sufficient evidence of relevance and general importance. Thus, it's inappropriate to claim that what is minimally (by your own data) a substantial minority view is "fringe". Moving beyond that point, I was claiming that so much of the debate has happened in response to Jensen's arguments, that the debate makes little sense if you don't have a clear picture of what he says. As Flynn often says, the glove that Jensen threw down forced people to put much more effort into bolstering their (previously weak) arguments. Jensen is mainstream because people take him seriously as a scholar. This would be obvious in a context without political overtones. --Legalleft (talk) 09:05, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

On Wikipedia fringe theories include "ideas which purport to be scientific theories but have not gained scientific consensus", that is a direct quote. There is no way Jensen's ideas can be considered "consensus". Give the nutters a small section in the article, by all means, but don't claim they are mainstream. No geneticist worth their salt would support Jensen's clearly racist and bigoted "science" (and I use the term in it's loosest possible sense, as I would for intelligent design). Alun (talk) 16:38, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia Weekly Episode 41

Wikipedia Weekly Episode 41 has been released!

.mp3 and .ogg versions can be found at http://wikipediaweekly.org/2008/02/04/episode-41-setting-the-record-straight/, and, as always, you can download past episodes and leave comments at http://wikipediaweekly.com/.

For Wikipedia Weekly — WODUP 23:06, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

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Bauchet Map

On the genetic map you created from Bauchet's data, you made a critical error. All of the Italians tested in that study were from Southern Italy. So the Northern 2/3 of the country should be in gray, and the color gradients should go from the South to Sicily or vice versa (see this chart of Cluster 1 from the paper for an example). ---- Small Victory (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 09:57, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Check your image again, there are the Italian samples from the Coriell panel as well. I don't think these are identified as anything other than Italian. So there are two sets of Italian samples, the Coreill panel samples and the Southern Italian samples. The only reason I drew it as a gradient is because it was the only way to portray that some Italians belong to the "northern cluster" and others belong to the "southeastern cluster". Check out Table 1 in the paper, this also states there are two sources for Italian samples. Thanks for the note though. Alun (talk) 15:43, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, there are three sources for the Italian samples: Southern Italy, Sicily and Coriell. And you can see in the chart I linked to that the one belonging to the "northern cluster" is the Southern Italian sample. The other two samples both belong to the "southern cluster". So even if the Coriell sample was composed of Northern Italians (which is unlikely), your map would still be inaccurate. It needs to show that the gradient is between Southern Italy and Sicily, not between Northern and Southern Italy as it does now, which is unsupported by the data no matter what the origins of the Coriell sample. ---- Small Victory (talk)

No, you are incorrect. The map does not not need to show that the gradient in Italy is between central Italy and southern Italy, the map needs to show that there is a sharp gradient in Italy, the only reason I show the gradient varying north-south is to show that 1) there is a gradient in Italy and 2) That some Italians belong to the "northern cluster" and that some Italians belong to the "south-eastern cluster", I think the map illustrates this very well. I don't think the map is either incorrect or misleading, it is not likely that the Italians that belong to the "northern cluster" are from southern Italy or that Italians that belong to the "south-eastern cluster" from are from northern Italy. Furthermore your claim that the Coriel samples are unlikely to be derived from northern Italy seems to be without foundation. One of the problems with this paper is that many of the samples are only labelled by state of origin and no data are available for the geographic origin of the samples within the state, it gives a false sense of distinctiveness. I worked very hard to construct this map, it was not easy and took a long time to do, I am very pleased with the results, I am quite annoyed that all you can do is critisise another's hard work and effort. Alun (talk) 17:16, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, you should have spent as much time reading and understanding the study as you did constructing your map. You went with your assumptions about Northern and Southern Italy instead of learning the facts. And you seem unable to even understand what I'm explaining to you now, or to interpret a simple chart representing the data from the study.

Look at it again. It's clear that the Southern Italian sample belongs to the "northern cluster", and that the Sicilian and Coriell samples both belong to the "southern cluster". There's no evidence that any Northern Italians were sampled in the study, but even if Coriell were Northern Italian, it doesn't cluster with the "north", it clusters with the "south", so it doesn't help your case at all.

Conclusion: Your map is incorrect and misleading. It needs to be either fixed or deleted. ---- Small Victory (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 09:54, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Please read and try and understand the policy on assuming good faith. Your arrogant and patronising attitude does nothing to help the situation, it only leads to confronation. Please also observe that this paper makes no mention that samples were only collected from south Italy, so your claim is without foundation. The paper's text refers to Italians and to Italy several times, it makes no claims specifically for southern or northern Italians. The Italian samples are simply called "Italian" in the text of the article, there are seven Italian samples, five from South Italy and Sicily and two from Coriell simply labelled "Italian". Because of the way the diagrams are labelled in the paper it is not always possible to know which individuals in the analysis are from which part of Italy, and so it is impossible to claim one way or the other which samples correspond to which geographic region. I used the diagram in figure 4B (k=6), in this diagram the samples are labelled "Italian", with no other information given. Because of this, all I did was to take the samples that have membership of the "northern cluster" (three samples) and apply them to the north of Italy, and apply those that mostly belong to the south-eastern cluster (four samples) to southern Italy. The only reason the samples that mainly belong to the "northern cluster" in Italy are in the north of the country is because the cluster is the northern cluster, the map makes no claims that only northern Italians belong predominantly to this cluster. The alternative would be to average all Italian samples together and apply the average to the whole of Italy, as I have done with all other groups. I would happily do this if that is what you would like, but it is absolutely clear in the text of the paper that some Italians belong predominantly to the "south-eastern cluster" and others have some membership in the "northern cluster", but all Italians also belong to other clusters as well. Indeed all clusters on my map are averages for the populations sampled, all I did with Italians is the average members of the "northern cluster" differently to members of the "southeastern cluster" because the paper claims that some Italians belong in one and other Italians belong in the other (mostly). Here are the relevant quotes from the paper:

Conversely, Italy appears to be a zone of sharp differentiation over small distances. Some Italians cluster with the Northern Europeans while others fall into the Southeastern grouping (Figure 2A).
Within the two broad Northern (Polish, Irish, English, Germans and some Italians) and Southeastern (Greeks, Armenians, Jews and some Italians)
The Northern cohort included all Finnish, Polish, most German, Irish and English, as well as some Basque and Italian individuals. The Southeastern cohort included all Armenians, Jews, Greeks and the other Italians.

I don't really understand your obsession with this rather trivial and minor point. The map is a graphic representation of data, nothing more, it hardly warrants the fanatical obsession you appear to have with it. I made this map in good faith, you simply don't seem to have any good faith in you at all. If you'd like me to average out all Italian samples and apply them to the map as I have with other regions, then I am happy to do this, as long as you can muster enough good grace to ask nicely instead of being arrogant and insulting towards other good faith editors who have put in a great deal of hard work. Oh, and learn to sign your posts, it's not difficult. I also note that you cite the neo-nazi site "racial reality" quite often, I think I know where you are coming from. Alun (talk) 16:22, 10 February 2008 (UTC)