Talk:History of the race and intelligence controversy

Citing isolated studies.

As a reminder, we should generally avoid citing individual studies for anything on a page like this, especially relatively recent ones. From WP:RS: Isolated studies are usually considered tentative and may change in the light of further academic research. If the isolated study is a primary source, it should generally not be used if there are secondary sources that cover the same content. The reliability of a single study depends on the field. Avoid undue weight when using single studies in such fields. Studies relating to complex and abstruse fields, such as medicine, are less definitive and should be avoided. Secondary sources, such as meta-analyses, textbooks, and scholarly review articles are preferred when available, so as to provide proper context. If a study is worth including, it will generally pick up secondary sources pretty quickly; but since the study of intelligence, genetics, and the brain definitely falls under the "complex and abstruse fields" warning, we need to avoid citing individual papers unless they're very well-established (and if they are, we should be able to find secondary sources and use those.) --Aquillion (talk) 22:26, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Aquillion, this is also a problem in the article "Race and intelligence", see discussion of a specific incicent --Angillo (talk) 16:08, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Lysenko in field with wheat.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 03:29, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Recent reversions

I've done a bunch of edits recently and had two reverted. These reverts restored images I had cut so I'd like to explain my rationale for cutting them.

1) The first image I cut was of a document which is apparently a page from an address Arthur Jensen gave in 1967. My edit summary stated: "Cut image of document as uninformative / uninteresting / only serving to give this document WP:UNDUE status relative to other papers discussed here". That seems pretty clear to me, and no reason was given for reverting.

2) The second image is of controversial English psychologist Richard Lynn. Over at Talk:Richard_Lynn#Use_of_"controversial"_for_description_in_lead we've reached a consensus that he needs to be referred to as "a controversial English psychologist" rather than simply "an English psychologist" because of the overwhelming balance of sources that describe him this way. If the image is to remain here its caption should be updated to reflect this.

The editor who restored these images also restored a snippet of text on Lynn which I think contains WP:UNDUE/WP:PUFFERY but I will be happy to remove only those clauses and retain the factual information there. In my view the current version:

Lynn, longtime editor of and contributor to Mankind Quarterly and a prolific writer of books, has concentrated his research in race and intelligence on gathering and tabulating data about race differences in intelligence across the world. He has also made suggestions about its political implications, including the revival of older theories of eugenics, which he describes as "the truth that dares not speak its name".

should be trimmed down to:

Lynn, longtime editor of and contributor to Mankind Quarterly, has concentrated his research in race and intelligence on gathering and tabulating data about race differences in intelligence across the world, and has also made suggestions about its political implications, including the revival of older theories of eugenics.

It would also be appropriate here to introduce a descriptor of Mankind Quarterly to make clear that it is widely considered to be a white supremacist journal, as stated in the lead of its WP article, and to mention some of the criticisms of Lynn's work here. Some of these criticisms are discussed below but it is best for each section to have proper WP:WEIGHT, especially in a long article like this.

Thanks, and of course I'll be happy to discuss each of these points as necessary. Generalrelative (talk) 06:18, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

The recent arbitrary deletions of images by Generalrelative (GR) are problematic. They were made without seeking consensus. The usual process WP:BRD applies, which is why I have amended the header. For two small images, GR has now provided a wall of text. I created the original article History of the race and intelligence controversy in Spring 2010; the problems in creating that content resulted in the WP:ARBR&I case (see template above).

• One of the two images is of the controversial document, "How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?" That is summarised in a very long accompanying passage by Adrian Wooldridge of "The Economist" in his 1994 book "Measuring the mind: education and psychology in England c.1860-1990." The summary accompanies the image and is why it is there. A POV fork article How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement? was made by Yfever who created the article A Troublesome Inheritance.
• The image of Richard Lynn is there for balance. He is linked to the Pioneer Fund and Mankind Quarterly. That is carefully described by William Tucker, an expert on the history of scientific racism. Lynn is a controversial figure. That can be emphasised; possibly that can be added to the caption.

In summary: I believe that the images should remain, with the accompanying text for Lynn adjusted. The links to the Pioneer Fund and Mankind Quarterly could be made more explicit. Mathsci (talk) 08:15, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Note that I have restored the original header title. There was no policy-based reason to alter this header. Generalrelative (talk) 16:55, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I'll also note that, despite the petulant tone, it appears that Mathsci and I agree on all but the first point: the image of Jensen's paper. For reference, here is that image.

In October 1967 Arthur Jensen gave an invited address with the same title as his article at the annual meeting of the California Advisory Council of Educational Research in San Diego

Generalrelative (talk) 16:58, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

(ec) That is indeed the image/document "How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?", uploaded to accompany the lengthy text summarised and paraphrased from the 1994 book of Adrian Wooldridge. That is a lot of material. The image has been in the article since the creation over a decade ago. Where there was a very clear fault was in the POV fork How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?: that article by Yfever was an attempt to produce an alternative hereditarian version of the summary. Editors there, such as User:aprock and User:Professor marginalia, thought the POV fork was some kind of joke; but an AfD failed. Long term editors who have helped in R&I articles were both professional anthropologists: User:Slrubenstein, Steve Rubenstein, who died in 2012 at the age of 50; and User:maunus, who still edits but is now less active. I requested help from an administrator because of your use of Talk:Race and intelligence as a WP:FORUM: I have not edited Race and intelligence or its talk page since July 2010. The image was uploaded in en.wikipedia.org on 30 May 2010 and was transferred to Commons by the administrator FastilyClone in 2014. The caption was copied at that stage. The document of Jensen was central to the furore sparked off in the late sixties. That's what reliable sources say. I was actually surprised that the document could be found; after 10 years, however, I can't quite remember how I found it. Regards, Mathsci (talk) 19:21, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

The above comment appears to be entirely off-topic. I will just note that nothing at WP:FORUM (or rather WP:FORUMSHOP, which is what I presume Mathsci meant) discourages the type of notice I gave here. Generalrelative (talk) 19:44, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Generalrelative that the picture of a page from Jensen's talk doesn't belong. It's an unusual image to have, unless the page were a document of historical significance, which it isn't. As far as the image of Lynn goes, I don't see anything wrong with having the image if it has a suitable caption making it clear that he promotes fringe views. But I don't see how including him provides "balance". I count 16 portraits of people in this article, including 10 promoters of racialist or eugenist theories (Galton, Terman, Goddard, Shockley, Lynn, Draper, Jensen, Cattell, Eysenck, Burt) and 4 opponents of scientific racism (Flynn, Douglass, DuBois, Boas) -- a strange notion of balance. The other two are of Binet (who I don't believe was involved in the debate) and Lysenko (who has nothing to do with this article, except to give undue emphasis to Jensen's name-calling his opponents "neo-Lysenkoites"). If you want balance, you could include portraits of Lewontin, Kamin, Gould, Montagu. NightHeron (talk) 17:23, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Images have always been a problem because of unavailability and copyright issues, including copyvios. For Kamin for example, his image can only be used for the biography article. There was an image of Gould in the article, but it was deleted as a copyvio. There are no images for Lewontin (he's over 90 now). The main problem was in finding recent images, not numbers of environmentalists/hereditarians. Try finding the images on en.wp or commons and you will discover the problem for yourself. Most of the images were found in Spring 2010; it could be even harder now. I have two postscripts: first, in 2019, Eysenck was posthumously discredited at his psychology institute in King's College, London for scientific fraud involving lung cancer; second, there is an image of Montagu but with no relevant text for that material. This article was originally detached from the article race and intelligence at the suggestion of my friend, the cultural anthropologist Steven Rubenstein (User:Slrubenstein). The text came first and then images added, when available. I also created the biography articles on Christopher Jencks in 2010 and Nicholas Mackintosh in 2009. Again no images; Flynn was around with Mackintosh at that time. Mathsci (talk) 09:52, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

MOS:IMAGES (at #Pertinence and encyclopedic nature) says

Images must be significant and relevant in the topic's context, not primarily decorative. They are often an important illustrative aid to understanding. When possible, find better images and improve captions instead of simply removing poor or inappropriate ones, especially on pages with few visuals. However, not every article needs images, and too many can be distracting.

or, as an oft repeated maxim says "to illustrate, not to decorate". It is not obvious to me how an image of a paper illustrates anything other than WP:ADVOCACY. Why is this paper being picked out for special attention? Are we telling readers that it is particularly important? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 18:30, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Previously there were more images in the article. Rushton was there but removed as a copyvio. For the early period of HR&IC, there are lots of images; for 1920-1960, there is just the image of Boas; for 1960-1980 there's Shockley, Draper, Jensen, the "How Much ..." document, Cattell, Eysenck, Burt and Lysenko; for 1980-2000 there's just Lynn and Flynn. There are no images of the 1994 book on the Bell Curve because of copyright rules. There are no policy statements for images, just guidelines. I know that because of edits in other topics. The article Europe, where I am the still the main contributor, has far too many images, far too many maps, etc. It's crowded. For music and art articles, there are only guide lines. For art, Edmund de Unger. I also added an image of a chateau for Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. Here is an example for a Lutheran Hymn Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten with audio media (an ogg file of a Reger chorale prelude coded by me in lilypond). For the BWV 543, the article and images are still being created. For Franz Liszt and the featured article Frédéric Chopin, there were no particular guidelines on images, etc. For Marseille and Aix-en-Provence, there was a lot of chopping and changing of images. Mathsci (talk) 20:11, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Despite the profusion of words here, it seems we're left with a simple conclusion: 3-1 in favor of removing the image in question (and a solid consensus for the compromise language suggested in my OP). I'll hold off for a couple days in case anyone else would like to weigh in, and if nothing changes here I'll then make the edits. We can continue to discuss possible solutions to WP:BALANCE issues with the images in a separate thread if necessary. Generalrelative (talk) 01:50, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

• The official 17 page document is here. The second page of the 1967 article shows the image. The title was "How Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?"
• The 123 page sequel with the same title was in the 1969 Harvard Educational Review here (subscription only)

The 1967 paper is similar to the cover of the Treaty of Versailles. In 2010, the 1969 paper was summarised/paraphrased from Wooldridge's book. It became one of the most notorious and controversial papers of that era, as attested in Jensen's 2012 obituaries[1], [2], [3], etc.

The second page of the 1967 article is not a big deal; the 1969 article is under copyright. It's also part of the Jensen shrine of User:Deleet/Emil Kirkegaard. The 17 page document is of symbolic value only. With their headers, advertising and commentary, Generalrelative has made a mountain out of a molehill about this image; if, however, they are going to spend their time fighting to right great wrongs, I am not going to stand in their way.

This year NightHeron advertised an off-wiki posting about SPLC on wikipedia.[4] I was involved in dealing with meat/sockpupppetry described there: I am not sure whether Generalrelative or NightHeron have worked that out. Mathsci (talk) 01:22, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree with user:Mathsci that I'd rather not see any more removals from these articles. This issue is larger than just the images, and there was another recent example in the history of Nations and intelligence quotient from 30 November to 5 December. Count me against removing the images from this article also. Gardenofaleph (talk) 21:53, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough. Though there's really no way to engage constructively here if your argument is simply that you WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT. Regardless, this conversation appears to have run its course and, per WP:ONUS, consensus for retaining the disputed content does not appear likely to emerge. Generalrelative (talk) 08:43, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

The tone of you response here, with [[WP:JUSTDONTLIYEIT]] and [[WP:ONUS]], leaves a lot to be desired. Your idea of counting !votes is not how it's done on AfDs or RfCs: an involved administrator should probably help if you are just "judging" images. (The Milton Keynes editor has not weighed in a second time.)

I decided in the end that I preferred to discuss the two images in their own two sections, giving reasons in edit summaries. For 1960–1980, even if both had the same title, the sprawling 1969 article was the one being discussed, not the short 1967 San Diego talk, so that was removed. Then, for the 1980-2000 section, I removed a hidden image for "The Bell Curve", because it's under copyright. I made all other removals related to Richard Lynn except for (a) referring to him as "the controversial English psychologist" instead of "a controversial English psychologist" and (b) the Wildian quote of Lynn, which is now attributed in the 2002 book of William H. Tucker (psychologist). Mathsci (talk) 14:30, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Comments on checking citations and reviews of Richard Lynn's books

Since 2008, book reviews of the Richard Lynn's books have been used in this article and other related articles. Those reviews should be sourced; sometimes editors have produced their own commentary on controversial content without sources.

• Dysgenics. In 2008, I made edits creating content about 2 book reviews. That involved finding reliable reviewers, Nicholas Mackintosh (for which I created a BLP) and W. D. Hamilton. Both are FRS. This is that content which has not been changed since added. The section on Eugenics in [[Richard Lynn]] is still unsourced.

• Race differences in intelligence. Mackintosh's 2007 book review of Richard Lynn's 2001 book are no longer in this article. The substance of that review was summarised in Mackintosh's 2011 second edition of his "IQ and Human Intelligence": "the results of three studies of the San Bushman of southern Africa give them an IQ of 54. Lynn does, at least for a moment, wonder whether 'people with an IQ of 54 could survive as hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari desert, and whether this could be a valid estimate of their intelligence'. But this worry is still dismissed. 'An IQ of 54 represents the mental age of the average European 8-year-old child ... [who] would have no difficulty in learning and performing of gathering foods and hunting carried out by the San Bushmen'."

• Eugenics: A Reassessment. In Angélique Richardson's 2003 OUP book "Love and eugenics in the late nineteenth century", page 226, she writes: "In Eugenics: A Reassessment, the psychologist Richard Lynn urges a new eugenics of human biotechnology and predicts how eugenic policies are likely to affect national configurations, geopolitics, and the balance of power in the twenty-first century. Like his Victorian predecessors, he uses the language of social equality to advance eugenics, concluding that the twenty-first century will be recognized as the time when humans took control of their genetic destiny, a conquest which will be regarded 'as one of the greatest advances in history'. Lynn argues that if the new eugenics of medical technology is only used by the affluent, then societies will become more divided, with IQ, work ethic, motivation, and self-discipline—qualities which he considers to be genetic—rising among the affluent, and, conversely, 'a genetic under-class' of 'unskilled workers and unemployables' developing. Eugenics, the love of late nineteenth century, has become, for Lynn, 'the truth that dare not speak its name'." Richardson is Professor at Exeter University in History of Science and Literature with collaborative projects at the Royal Society.

Originally the content had, Lynn "has concentrated his research in race and intelligence on gathering and tabulating data about race differences in intelligence across the world. He has also made suggestions about its political implications, including the revival of older theories of eugenics, which he describes as 'the truth that dares not speak its name'." The last sentence is a summary from Richardson. It took a while to access and check 4 or 5 sources for content on eugenics: Tucker turned out to be the wrong source. Since it came from Richardson, which apparently Generalrelative has not read, the sentence should probably be rewritten, using WP:RS and WP:V. In this case WP:DUE means that a relevant and longish paragraph (see above) should be paraphrased/summarised in a way that properly represents the content. The concluding quote of Richardson, which precedes Lynn's grim vision of the future, is completely apt. In the absence of Richardson as a source, the edits of Generalrelative seem to have been made just on the basis of WP:IDLI and not on a careful reading. Mathsci (talk) 02:06, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

My edit summary was clear: Quote is verifiable but WP:UNDUE. It's also nonsensical in this context because eugenics is not a proposition that can be "true" or "false". Please refer to WP:ONUS before restoring disputed content. I did not say that I had verified it myself but rather that it was verifiable. Indeed, I was taking it on faith that you were not misstating (or misremembering as the case may be) the source for this quote: [5]

I will also remind Mathsci that article talk pages are not an appropriate place to characterize the imagined motivations of other editors. My response to Gardenofaleph referenced WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT with regard to the actual substance of their comment –– i.e. that there was nothing there but a bare assertion of personal preference: [6] On the other hand, stating that the edits of Generalrelative seem to have been made just on the basis of WP:IDLI, when I have given the substantive edit summary quoted above, is entirely inappropriate. The same goes for Mathsci's recourse to ad hominem ("arbitrary", "fighting to right great wrongs") in the previous thread. I very much hope that this will be the one and only time I need to raise this issue here, and that we can now WP:FOC. Generalrelative (talk) 03:30, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

"Today, the scientific consensus is that genetics does not explain differences in IQ test performance between racial groups."

The following discussion 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.

---

This is just not true. One does not need to go far to know that. This page even references a paper, more specifically an expert survey that directly contradicts this statement. Only 17% of the participants of the survey hold a completely environmentalist view on the black-white IQ gap, even though 32% of the participants identified as very liberal. David Reich, notorious liberal-leaning geneticist, has admitted that we should expect science to prove cognitive differences in the population of genetic origin in an article he published on The New York Times in 2018. The environmentalist view is currently as weak as ever. Hot Twink 69 (talk) 13:48, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

This statement has been thoroughly vetted and each of your objections has been thoroughly debunked. See Talk:Race_and_intelligence/Archive_103#RfC_on_racial_hereditarianism. This will not be relitigated here. Generalrelative (talk) 13:56, 13 September 2021 (UTC)

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.

Discovery of differences in incidence of IQ gene variants

This paragraph should be included:

Nonetheless, in recent years scientists have found thousands of the SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) associated with educational attainment (a close proxy for IQ) in what are known as genome-wide association studies. It is now clear that at least some of the genetic variants that contribute to higher intelligence are not evenly distributed across races.

The science behind it is undeniable — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.149.193.190 (talk • contribs)

The science is indeed undeniable. However you do not seem to understand it, nor do you appear to understand how Wikipedia works. That's okay, but now that you know you're doing it wrong, please take some time to familiarize yourself with our policies on WP:OR, and in particular WP:SYNTH, before editing further. You should also be aware of the strong consensus against racial hereditarianism established here: Talk:Race_and_intelligence/Archive_103#RfC_on_racial_hereditarianism. Generalrelative (talk) 16:41, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

None of this is original research, they are all peer-reviewed articles published in prestigious academic journals and all the sources explicitly say exactly what the paragraph says. The first article says more than 1200 SNPs were discovered in the study. The second article says "Allelefrequencies varied by continent in a way that corresponds with observed population differences in average phe-notypic intelligence." The third is an article from the Wall Street Journal that says the gene variants discovered are more common outside Subsaharan Africa than inside Maybe if people were allowed to see this information that consensus would crumble. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.149.193.190 (talk • contribs)

Are you really trying to cite Davide Piffer of the Ulster Institute for Social Research? And then claiming that scientists are unaware of their research because of censorship by Wikipedia? And edit warring in the meanwhile rather than waiting for a consensus to emerge in support of your addition as is required? Generalrelative (talk) 16:54, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Piffer's article was published in the mainstream journal Intelligence. I have also independently confirmed his results using this database: https://popgen.uchicago.edu/ggv/

By the consensus crumbling I meant the consensus among wikipedia editors and the general public.

Most scientists who would respond to a survey on the matter already acknowledge that there is a genetic component to the gaps. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.149.193.190 (talk • contribs)

Intelligence has a history of publishing racist pseudo-science.. - MrOllie (talk) 17:06, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

As far as I know there is no Wikipedia policy against quoting the journal Intelligence. Further, given that this information is publicly available and easily verifiable from a number of databases from respected academic institutions, I fail to see how any of it can be considered "pseudoscience". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.149.193.190 (talk • contribs)

Since you also apparently don't know about WP:3RR, I would not assume you have a complete knowledge of Wikipedia policy. - MrOllie (talk) 17:17, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

That applies to you as much as it applies to me. Further, it does nothing to show that the Journal Intelligence or the WSJ are not sources that should be allowed on Wikipedia. The paragraph clearly has important and relevant information that people looking at the article would certainly be interested in knowing. The sources comply with Wikipedia's policy. The information is accurate. Please stop removing it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.149.193.190 (talk) 17:21, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

I'll just leave this here for anyone who may stumble upon this conversation in the future: Talk:Race and intelligence/FAQ.

Generalrelative (talk) 18:12, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

And I'll just note that a number of editors strongly disagree with most of the FAQ's claims. See the old discussion here[7] and here[8]. The FAQ answer about political correctness is particularly bad and misleading, as evidenced by this recent New Yorker article.[9] Stonkaments (talk) 18:16, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

1) a number: yes, a very small number, most notably a verbose sockpuppet and yourself.

2) Rehashing old discussions where the consensus was clearly against you is, at this point, long past disruptive.

3) evidenced by this recent New Yorker article: this does not look like evidence to me. Instead, perhaps take a look at the the citations which actually appear in the FAQ?

4) For someone who has declared themselves to be finished with this topic, you sure do seem to have a hard time dropping the stick and moving on. Generalrelative (talk) 20:14, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

I insist it is important that this is included somewhere in the article. It will make it more balanced. Most importantly, the paragraph is accurate. I await a sound counter argument that leads to the conclusion that this paragraph should not be on this Wikipedia article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.149.193.190 (talk) 00:56, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

The answer you got looks pretty solid to me. The onus is on you to build consensus for inclusion. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 03:47, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

The answer was an ad hominem against Piffer and an assertion that Intelligence publishes racist pseudoscience. The fact that a journal publishes information that appears to you to be "racist" to you does not make it pseudoscience. Is the information factually correct, yes or no? Is Piffer's methodology sound, yes or no? No one is even denying that it is true that the genetic variants for IQ are not evenly distributed across races. If you really do not like Intelligence just keep the WSJ and a link to Bruce Lahn's Wikipedia article and that is that. I know I am meant to assume good faith, but I cannot help but think that the exclusion of this paragraph is motivated by politics, not the science or even Wikipedia's policies.

(response to unsigned comment) Since Davide Piffer's writings about race are at issue, it's not an ad hominem attack to mention his extreme racialist views; see [10]. NightHeron (talk) 10:15, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Piffer can think and say whatever, he could be a talking dog for all I care. There is no Wikipedia citing policy precluding citations from people who have made racists or extreme comments in other contexts. All that matters is for Wikipedia, was his article published in a peer-reviewed academic journal, and the answer is yes. If you guys don't like the Piffer reference, drop it and stick with the WSJ one.

These are important scientific results that lie at the heart of the topic of this article. Wikipedia is the largest online encyclopedia in the world, its readers should not be kept from this information for brazen political reasons.

The 15-year-old WSJ article is not a good source either. Are there any recent reliable secondary sources that back up the claims by Lahn? Extraordinary claims require substantial support from reliable secondary sources. NightHeron (talk) 12:34, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Well if you look into what happened with Lahn, he stopped doing his research in this area because it was getting "too controversial". How is this an extraordinary claim? Is the WSJ not a reliable secondary source? As I said earlier, you can corroborate Piffer's results for yourself by simply inputting the SNPs from his study in this database: https://popgen.uchicago.edu/ggv/

No, the WSJ is not a reliable secondary source for evaluating scientific claims. The claim in this case is "extraordinary" because it contradicts the consensus of mainstream science. As Generalrelative suggested above, you should read the relevant Wikipedia policies, such as WP:OR, WP:RS, and WP:FRINGE. NightHeron (talk) 13:29, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

By the way, another Wikipedia policy that you should be aware of is that you're supposed to sign each of your comments by putting 4 tildes at the end. NightHeron (talk) 13:31, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

We have already determined that this is NOT original research. The RS policy explicitly says "News reporting from well-established news outlets is generally considered to be reliable for statements of fact (though even the most reputable reporting sometimes contains errors)", the WSJ is one of the largest news papers in the US.

I am sure you will say the thing about the consensus has been litigated time and time again, but I have not seen any persuasive evidence that there is such a consensus, I have seen contradictory surveys on the matter. One where most intelligence researchers who responded (albeit with a low response rate) agreed that there is a genetic component to the gap, others that, while not asking specifically about IQ, showed that there may be a consensus that race does not exist among Western anthropologists, the issue is far more contentious among geneticists.

I did read in the FAQ that it said "Generally speaking, the better the methodology of the survey, the lower agreement it shows with the claim of a genetic link between race and intelligence.", however, I did not find any references to any surveys that according to them, had better methodologies. If you can provide them, that would be good.

What this surveys do show however, at the very least, is that this constitutes AT LEAST a significant minority opinion among the experts. Wikipedia explicitly says "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered"

Finally, I invite you to read the GWAS themselves, and see that these SNPs do cause variations in educational attainment. And then to go to the https://popgen.uchicago.edu/ggv/ data base and see how the proportions differ by population. And see that this is, as a matter of fact, true. 93.149.193.190 (talk) 13:55, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

FYI I have mentioned this discussion at WP:ANI#IP_editing_at_Talk:History_of_the_race_and_intelligence_controversy MrOllie (talk) 14:22, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

I might also mention that he Microcephalin gene variants identified by Bruce Lahn (that are differentially distributed among modern populations) were not found to be associated with IQ or cognitive ability in modern groups (Mentioned here with sources cited https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcephalin#Controversy). For this reason as well, citing an old source to support the idea that they are so associated is misleading. Skllagyook (talk) 15:24, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Other sources say it is a good predictor of IQ at the population level.

There is no reason to hide this information from people reading this article. It is important, relevant, well-sourced, and, most importantly, accurate. Please include the paragraph.93.149.193.190 (talk) 16:38, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

The correlation they find in the singe study you linked is at a country level (essentially the same point made by Lahn to suggest it as a cause). But no association was ever found on an individual level (which makes it seem unlikely to be a cause of IQ differences). Also, their study was published in Intelligence (a questionable journal for reasons explained by others here), is co-authored by Heiner Rindermann (a hereditarian and contributor to Mankind Quarterly) and is not a secondary source (but rather a single primary source). Regarding your claim that it is "accurate", that is not for us as Wikipedia editors to judge based on personal opinion (see WP:TRUTH). Skllagyook (talk) 16:52, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

OK, we can rephrase the paragraph:

Nonetheless, in recent years scientists have found thousands of the SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) associated with educational attainment (a close proxy for IQ) in what are known as genome-wide association studies. [1] It is now clear that at least some of the genetic variants that contribute to higher educational attainment and brain size and development are not evenly distributed across races.

Piffer accounts for educational attainment, Lahn accounts for brain size and development, without saying or implying this has anything to do with IQ.

Heiner Rindermann is a hereditarian and contributor to Mankind Quarterly... so what? James Flynn was an environmentalist, and a socialist. Yet he is referenced here.

Intelligence is, according to the very sources you use to criticize it, one of the most respected journals in its field. The fact that they publish material that supports the hereditarian hypothesis does not make it pseudoscience. Since the sources did not care to mention any specific articles that would qualify as "pseudoscience", nor did it care to point to inaccuracies in their data or errors in their statistical methods that are not merely part of a reasonable scientific disagreement, but actually on a pair with astrology and homeopathy in the world of "pseudoscience", perhaps you can direct us to said articles?93.149.193.190 (talk) 18:11, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

How about instead we close this discussion and proceed to deny recognition to this IP, who is clearly not here to collaboratively improve the encyclopedia? Generalrelative (talk) 18:15, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. This is a blatant case of refusal to accept consensus and tendentious POV-pushing. NightHeron (talk) 18:30, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

How about instead of blocking me you a) provide the better surveys that show the alleged consensus against hereditarianism in the scientific community b) provide a few articles that qualify as pseudoscience published on Intelligence 93.149.193.190 (talk) 01:56, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

References