Talk:Race and intelligence

Excessive detail of debate in summary section?

The summary of 'Environmental influences on group differences in IQ' strikes me as overly detailed--it has a blow-by-blow description of an academic debate. I propose shortening, as follows:

The following environmental factors are some of those suggested as explaining a portion of the differences in average IQ between races. These factors are not mutually exclusive with one another, and some may, in fact, contribute directly to others. Furthermore, the relationship between genetics and environmental factors may be complicated. For example, the differences in socioeconomic environment for a child may be due to differences in genetic IQ for the parents, and the differences in average brain size between races could be the result of nutritional factors.[75] All recent reviews agree that some environmental factors that are unequally distributed between racial groups have been shown to affect intelligence in ways that could contribute to the test score gap. However, currently, the question is whether these factors can account for the entire gap between white and black test scores, or only part of it. One group of scholars, including Richard E. Nisbett, James R. Flynn, Joshua Aronson, Diane Halpern, William Dickens, Eric Turkheimer (2012) have argued that the environmental factors so far demonstrated are sufficient to account for the entire gap. Nicholas Mackintosh (2011) considers this a reasonable argument, but argues that probably it is impossible to ever know for sure; another group including Earl B. Hunt (2010), Arthur Jensen,[19] J. Philippe Rushton and Richard Lynn have argued that this is impossible. Jensen and Rushton consider that it may account for as little as 20% of the gap. Meanwhile, while Hunt considers this a vast overstatement, he nonetheless considers it likely that some portion of the gap will eventually be shown to be caused by genetic factors. JDowning (talk) 20:14, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

The last sentence before the strike-out probably needs to go, as well. It is providing a false balance between the mainstream view (that race is an entirely social construct and thus any statement about race and IQ is meaningless) and contributes nothing but confusion to the article. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:15, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

I agree on the additional strikeout. That would leave this sentence as the end of the paragraph: "All recent reviews agree that some environmental factors that are unequally distributed between racial groups have been shown to affect intelligence in ways that could contribute to the test score gap." [emphases added]. This is uncontroversially phrased and a good summary, so the next sentence ("However, currently, the question is...") is repetitive. JDowning (talk) 22:16, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Please provide some citations re. "race is an entirely social construct and thus any statement about race and IQ is meaningless". To me, this looks like an attempt to remove coverage of significant researcher opinion by some other route than what WP:DUE prescribes. Deleet (talk) 05:20, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

Thed'd be about 90% of the sources at Race (human categorization). Damn, you fancy yourself a "researcher" yet you are unaware of basic facts about the state of current research? ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:28, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

1. No "damns" please. Be civil.

2. Quote:

...have been shown to affect intelligence in ways that could contribute...

contains 5 weasels in a row. Ditto for the other passages here. Zezen (talk) 10:47, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Damn hardly seems uncivil in this context. You are responding to two people who are blocked from editing. If you have a specific proposal, I suggest making it in a new section. Grayfell (talk) 04:29, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

So you're defending the uncivil behavior of an editor who was indefinitely banned for his incivility. Noted. Jwray (talk) 20:48, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

As far as I know, neither of them were blocked for uncivil behavior, but that hardly matters, does it? How is this snide comment productive to improving the article? Grayfell (talk) 21:25, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

It contributes to keeping the discussion civil, by (correctly, IMO) pointing out that your attempt to dismiss his behavior is hypocritical. --Toomim (talk) 06:56, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Question about sourcing

Under the section entitled “Research into the possible genetic influences on test score differences” there is the following quote: ”Growing evidence indicates that environmental factors, not genetic ones, are more important in explaining the racial IQ gap“ attributed to Essentials of Psychology: Concepts and Applications by Jeffrey Nevid. I own this text and can not find anything close to what is quoted above (on page 71 or anywhere else). Why is this quote being sourced to this text? 2600:1012:B060:F6B5:890C:5905:A65C:6A91 (talk) 20:59, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

The citation lists page 271, not page 71. Per Google Books, this page directly and unambiguously supports this statement. Grayfell (talk) 05:57, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

There is a critical distinction that needs to be made. Our article has the following text: "Growing evidence indicates that environmental factors, not genetic ones, are more important in explaining the racial IQ gap." However if you look at page 271 it actually says "increasing evidence points to the importance of environmental factors in explaining racial differences in IQ". You can see for yourrself. This is a contentious article, and it suffers from contributions that are taken out of context, misquoted or plain biased. As a result, it's important to be very careful when making changes to the article. The text does not say (paraphrasing) "growing evidence indicates environmental factors are more important than genetic factors in explaining the racial IQ gap". It says (again paraphrasing) "growing evidence indicates the importance of environmental factors in explaining the racial IQ gap ". There is a significant difference between the two quotes. Even one or two words can have an impact on a quote and change its meaning considerably. 99.48.35.129 (talk) 18:05, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

"...indicates the importance of environmental factors..." is so pointless it's almost tautological. "Importance" is relative and requires context. The source says "...increasing evidence points to the importance of environmental factors in explaining racial differences in IQ". Both directly and indirectly, both in isolation and in context, this source supports the current wording. Grayfell (talk) 20:27, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes and I am fine with that phrasing. The only part I have contention with is the unsourced portion - the part of the quote that says "..environmental factors not genetic ones are more important in explaining the racial IQ gap. " In other words, get rid of the "more important" and the "not genetic ones". These are completely unsupported - it's simply not an accurate representation of the text. The rest of the quote is fine though. 99.48.35.129 (talk) 20:38, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

No. This is fully supported by the cited source. The quote is in answer to a question posed by the preceding paragraph: Are these racial differences in IQ genetic or environmental in origin?"

The following paragraph further contextualizes this: "Another factor arguing against genetic explanations..."

As I said, both directly and indirectly, both in isolation and in context, this source supports the current wording. Grayfell (talk) 23:03, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

I was hoping someone else could give us their opinion, since it appears we both (in good faith) interpret the text differently. user:aquillion, as a veteran Wikipedian who has contributed significantly to this article, what do you think about the passage in question? 2600:1012:B023:455C:5CFA:B52F:4775:F684 (talk) 09:00, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Grayfell is clearly misinterpreting the text. Imagine that A is 1 and B is 10. Now add 1 to A so that it is 2. Yes, that means that A "increased." That increase does not mean that A is greater than B. Just because something is "increasing in importance" does not mean that it is more important or significant than other things. The source does not say what this article claims that it says. 2601:600:877F:B570:1D70:FD9B:22CF:959C (talk) 06:53, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

In the above it is clear that you know this a contentious article with a contentious past. As such, you are welcome to contribute as a shifting IP but in an article like this other editors know that an infinite amount of time could be spent debating shifting IPs. However my view is that a reliable source would not comment on the importance of some factors if their effect were ten times smaller than other factors. Johnuniq (talk) 07:18, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by "shifting IP". I was the on who made the original comment and all the follow ups with the exception of the comment using the analogy of A and B (which I agree with by the way). In any event, there is no policy prohibiting an unregistered user from contributing. I even asked for feedback from other users. If we stick to the subject at hand, it is apparent the source is being misrepresented. Not sure why no one is willing to discuss this. 2602:301:772D:62D0:A585:D95F:8304:25BB (talk) 05:18, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

I concur with the criticism, this is plain wrong and needs to be changed. The source text expresses that one factor turned out to be more important than previously thought, it did not conclude that this one factor is more important than the other. Let's set the bar higher than this, please. Flyingtart (talk) 20:52, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

I concur with Flyingtart. The phrases "more important" and "not genetic ones" are clearly unsupported. I am removing them. --Toomim (talk) 07:00, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Contentious non-mainstream sources

Is there any good reason why works by Philippe Rushton, Richard Lynn, Charles Murray or Arthur Jensen should be used as citations here? In any instance that their claims are notable rather than their works, that can be supported by objective sources describing them. Onetwothreeip (talk) 05:17, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

There are two possible ways of structuring this type of article. One is to cite only sources that provide impartial summaries of the debate, such as Hunt, Neisser and Loehlin. And the other is to structure it as a back-and-forth between two camps: between individuals such as Jensen, Murray, Rindermann and Gottfredson on one hand, and individuals such as Nisbett, Flynn and Turkheimer on the other. This article takes the latter approach. I am not sure whether this is the best approach to use, but as far as I can tell, the article has taken this approach for pretty much as long as it has existed.

On a topic as controversial as this one, I suspect that it sometimes isn't possible to have as high-quality an article as could exist on an uncontroversial topic. Even if an article taking the former approach could theoretically be of higher quality, such an article could never be stable, because proponents of each camp will always try to make sure that that the article mentions all of their camp's major arguments. This article has been relatively stable lately, and I would be opposed to restructuring it in a way that's likely to destabilize it. 2600:1004:B150:F8E1:9CD7:73C5:DA61:4A7D (talk) 06:32, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

The difference is that researchers such as Nisbett, Flynn and Turkheimer are very much mainstream scientists, whereas the individuals I mentioned are decidedly not. It is completely unencyclopaedic to present information as though there are two valid sides here. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:37, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

No, Nisbett is not mainstream either. (His social psychology research is relatively well-regarded, but not his writings about human intelligence.) Have you read the academic reviews of his book Intelligence and How to Get It? It was criticized for misrepresenting that field by nearly every psychology journal that reviewed it, yet it is extensively cited in this article. If the citations to Jensen, Murray, etc. are to be removed, then the non-mainstream sources on the opposite side would have to be removed as well. (However, I am opposed to doing this.) 2600:1004:B150:F8E1:9CD7:73C5:DA61:4A7D (talk) 06:59, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Please read the first sentence of my last response again. There is no debate here, as people like Arthur Jensen and Charles Murray are completely disregarded. Intelligence and How to Get It is a mainstream source but we should use the best possible sources, not simply a combination of opinions. This is not the right article to evaluate any controversy. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:11, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Have you read the academic reviews of the book? I asked you that question, but you didn't answer it. The book received four reviews in major psychology journals, and all four of them are mostly negative. [1] [2] [3] [4] Perhaps you'll disregard the first review because it was written by Rushton and Jensen, but there is no reason to disregard the other three. Much like The Bell Curve, Nisbett's book received lots of media attention, but was critically panned by professionals. (And I am assuming you don't consider The Bell Curve to be mainstream.) 2600:1004:B150:F8E1:9CD7:73C5:DA61:4A7D (talk) 07:29, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

That's not relevant at all to whether that work is mainstream or not, which in turn is not relevant to what this section is about. Publications being reviewed is a very regular part of academia. However, the only thing negative from what you have linked is from the second review. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:56, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

It seems to me that you're holding Jensen, Rushton et al. to a higher standard than you would other scientists, without any real justification why. These are all professional psychologists with works published in reputable journals. There views are no less "mainstream" than that of Nisbett, who has rather extreme views himself. Ultimately, this issue is a matter of scientific dispute, so we include all reliable sources in the debate. This is in contrast with something like global warming, which is not at all in dispute, and so for that reason we do not take the climate denial position seriously. CompactSpacez (talk) 13:05, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

I agree. Jensen, Rushton et al are treated as non-mainstream not because they are doing bad science, but because their arguments do fit at all well with contemporary conventional wisdom. We should have the courage to treat their views with respect, even if what they say is uncomfortable. ---Asteuartw (talk) 13:39, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

There are countless scientists who have looked at Jensen, Rushton, Lynn, etc. and methodically pulled-apart their out-dated, biased, and pseudoscientific work. They have documented precisely why it is, in fact, "bad science". Scientists in many fields have been doing this for decades right up until today. The reason this is necessary is because it is "comfortable" to ignore the deep flaws inherent in their work, and this has lasting and detrimental consequences. If they are held to a higher standard (which I dispute) it is for a good reason. They are not merely treated as non-mainstream, they have been increasingly pushed to the fringes by more modern research. Euphemistically brushing this off as "uncomfortable" ignores the mountains of data that has been collected, and research that has been done with that data. Grayfell (talk) 23:15, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

It is quite ironic that you'd refer to "modern research" and "mountains of data" in this context. Here is an actual example of the research that's currently being done on this article's topic: [5] A discussion of this study's limitation can be found in this thread at Twitter: [6] For the reasons explained there, this study can't be regarded as the final word on race, ancestry and cognitive ability (and nobody is claiming that it should be). However, it's an important new piece of data that other research will likely build upon in the future.

Here is why I'm bringing this up: you say that the newest research is increasingly pointing towards the conclusion that's the opposite of the one taken by this study. If that's indeed the case, what actual recent research have anti-racist academics produced to support the opposite perspective about the cause of racial IQ gaps? For that matter, when is the last time anti-racist academics have engaged directly with the new data being produced in this field at all? As far as I'm aware, the last academic book or paper that has made a serious attempt to engage with this type of data was "Intelligence: New Findings and Theoretical Developments", which is now more than seven years old. There certainly is a constant supply of new political arguments trying to prove that someone is a white supremacist or a eugenicist or whatnot, but on a scientific level, the arguments being presented by anti-racist academics in the present are the exact same arguments that were presented in response to The Bell Curve 25 years ago. These contemporary, but very old arguments invariably rely on claims such as that IQ tests do not measure a real ability, which are not taken seriously by the vast majority of psychologists. (See Gavin Evans' book Skin Deep for a typical example of this type of argument.) This actually is a regression, because a decade ago academics such as Nisbett and Turkheimer were making a serious attempt to engage with the new data being collected about race and IQ, but for the most part that is no longer happening.

People who follow research about genetics and intelligence are beginning to take notice of this shift, and you're seeing the effects of that on talk pages such as this one. More importantly, academics are taking notice as well. For example, Russell Warne is currently working on a new book about human intelligence, to be published by Cambridge University Press, in which he plans to discuss the MDPI study I've cited above. If the academic literature contained any rigorous critiques of this study's methods, Warne would discuss those as well, but thus far anti-racist academics have remained silent on this study, as they have about most of the other recent data collected in this field. This is an example of how shifts in the nature of an academic debate eventually come to be reflected in secondary sources, such as Warne's upcoming book.

The way sourcing is supposed to work at Wikipedia is that when a shift occurs in an academic debate, and that shift is reflected in secondary sources about the topic, this change in the perspective taken by secondary sources should come to be reflected in Wikipedia articles as well. When the shift in this particular debate eventually comes to be reflected in current secondary sources that discuss race and IQ, I hope you will allow Wikipedia policy to be followed in that regard. 2600:1004:B12B:E713:9053:2CEF:444F:5063 (talk) 18:06, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

You make it far too obvious when you refer to "anti-racist academics" pejoratively. Your opinions on certain researchers are irrelevant, as are the opinions of every other editor. If mainstream academics do not want to engage with some particular study, this means nothing to what the mainstream and scientifically accepted views on the issues are, and on how we display them. Currently this article implies that people like Arthur Jensen and Philippe Rushton have been on one side of a scientific debate, rather than the fringe people who were largely discredited by mainstream science that they actually are. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:06, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Please re-read the Wikipedia principles on Reliable sources. It does not matter whether a particular academic is seen as credible, or non-credible; mainstream, or non-mainstream; contentious, or consensus -- Wikipedia's policy is to include all majority and minority views that appear in "reliable, published sources". It is the publication's reputation that matters -- not the authors'. The views published by Rushton, Lynn, Murray, and Jensen clearly appear in reliable published sources, like the American Psychological Association, and furthermore they cite numerous studies that have been published for over 100 years. Thus, their views should be included in this Wikipedia article. The fact that they are minority views means that it is even more important to include them.Toomim (talk) 23:06, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected article request

This subject is pretty sensitive so i'd like to censor Wikipedia if possible? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.81.110.215 (talk) 10:48, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Why was my edit undone??

Why was my edit of today undone??Tesint (talk) 04:50, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps you are talking about diff which added "There is also no evidence that these differences are purely environmental in origin" to the lead. First, the way Wikipedia works is that an editor has to justify why text should be included rather than the reverse. Second, the WP:LEAD has to be a summary of the body of the article—is that text in the article? Third, text must be supported with reliable sources, otherwise it is original research. Johnuniq (talk) 05:39, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

But it appears to me that the preceding statement, that there is no non-circumstantial evidence of a genetic component, also violates each one of those rules. Would it be OK if I deleted that?Tesint (talk) 17:03, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Remarking a little further, it seems to me that the statement that there is "no evidence" for a genetic component does not appear anywhere else in the article, and is moreover, only true if one uses the strictest definition of what is "evidence" and the loosest definition of what is "no evidence". Legally, evidence is anything that makes a reasonable person more or less likely to believe a legal conclusion. So, eyewitness testimony is not proof, as an eyewitness may be mistaken, but it is evidence. Testimony may be false, but it is still evidence. In the scientific realm, when we are discussing phenomena spread out over populations in the millions, it is a little hard to see the difference between circumstantial and non-circumstantial evidence. It makes a lot of sense in a murder trial, but not here, where by the very nature of the issue evidence will tend to be statistical.

To my way of thinking, if you interpret the term "evidence" in such a manner that it is true to say that there is no evidence for a genetic component, than it is also true that there is no evidence of the other conclusion, that the difference in test scores is entirely environmental in origin.Tesint (talk) 19:05, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

@Tesint: It does not seem to me to violate the (aforementioned) rules, as the lede explains, there is uncertainty and currently no non-circumstantial evidence (i.e some argue that there is evidence but it is not non-circumstantial, meaning there is as yet no direct evidence.). But, as the lede also goes on to relevantly explain (mentioning existing "circumstantial evidence" in reference to the preceding sentence): "some researchers believe that the existing circumstantial evidence makes it at least plausible that hard evidence for a genetic component will eventually be found." (Thus there are those that posit or suggest a genetic component but there is as yet no proof or direct evidence of a genetic component. Some researchers suspect that such a component is plausible while some other researchers disagree.) :So it seems to me that this accurately sums up the state of the research per the sources and the uncertaintly around the issue, and there appears to be no need currently to delete anything. Also, I am (bellow) notifying the user Johnuniq to whom you responded of your replies (in case they did not see them). Skllagyook (talk) 19:31, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

@Johnuniq: The user Tesint seems to have been responding to you in their messages above) but did not ping you. So I am pinging you here to notify you of their responses.Skllagyook (talk) 19:31, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I saw the comments, thanks. It all boils down to WP:RS and WP:DUE which depend on the precise proposal. Johnuniq (talk) 21:58, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

The correlation between Race and Intelligence should occur in the Summary

This is an article on Race and IQ. The first thing someone should want to learn about is the correlation between Race and IQ, however some editors are trying to bury that evidence, hiding the science from the public, and only show criticism and debate of the evidence, without showing the evidence itself. This is science denialism and not a neutral POV.

I understand that some people don't want this evidence to exist, but it should be presented in the summary of the article. It is fine to also describe the criticism of the evidence, and to say that there is debate. But it is not ok to hide this evidence, and bury it under the debate. Note that there is no credible evidence saying that this evidence is wrong. There are simply people who do not like it. But Wikipedia needs to hold a neutral POV.

I fixed this by prefixing the intro with just 11 words: "Although a large body of evidence shows a correlation between race and IQ scores, the connection..." and then continued with the prose describing the debate, and the criticism of the connection between Race and Intelligence. My original edit was here. User Skllagyook reverted it here. I removed the word "large" and revised the edit here.

The Rushton article is an extremely thorough peer-reviewed, survey of 30 years of research by a U.C. Berkeley professor and University of Western Ontario professor, published in the American Psychological Association. It cites well over 100 studies, themselves having been peer-reviewed, over many decades of research. The American Psychological Association has blessed this work. It is reliable and reputable, and exactly what this article is talking about. However, Skllagyook removed this evidence from the page with the argument that "Rushton and Jenson are a contentious source who represent only one side of the debate". (See here.) That is bad behavior. You do not remove an article on the basis of it representing one side of the debate—you present both sides, so that the reader has access to the entire debate.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Toomim (talk • contribs) 19:41, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for letting us know that you consider Philippe Rushton and Arthur Jensen to be reliable sources. They have been completely discredited by mainstream science. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:13, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

It's not our job to decide who has been "discredited," and erase them from wikipedia articles. If that were the case, then Wikipedia would only show one side of every debate, rather than presenting a Neutral Point-of-View. Furthermore, it's simply not true that "they have been discredited" -- they wrote a survey paper, that cites and summarizes a wide array of research on the topic, including both sides. If that work were to proven wrong, one would have to go and disprove mountains of data with other data. Can you please show me the data that disproves the data that they cite? Finally, note that the context of this discussion is simply to present to wikipedia viewers that there is data. There are no claims made here other that that there is data showing a correlation between Race and IQ. There is a bevy of hard data that indicates this. If you disagree, please show the data. Otherwise, you are simply denying the science on the issue, in order to filter this article to one side of the debate. That goes against Wikipedia's 5th principle, and has no place in this encyclopedia.--Toomim (talk) 22:12, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

@Toomim: There was no attempt on my part to "bury" the evidence or correlation you mention, nor did my edit bury it. As I exained in the exit note, the existence of group test score differences was/is already (and srill is) mentioned and acnowledged in the lede/introduction (and is discussed througout the article) - the lede should be concise and mentioning it again is somewhat redudant and adds unnecessary emphasis. The lede read/reads: "There remains some debate as to whether and to what extent differences in intelligence test scores reflect environmental factors as opposed to genetic ones..." Said evidence is not being buried, hidden or denied here (not by my edit anyway). Skllagyook (talk) 22:17, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Let's be clear-- the summary has censored all mention of the data showing a correlation between IQ and Race. You have removed the data. You have only left discussion of debate, and only one side of the debate. You are censoring the data. That is anti-science, non-neutral, and censorship.--Toomim (talk) 22:58, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

It is indeed not our job to discredit anything, as that has already been done. Wikipedia can show these discredited views in their proper context, but we cannot show them as valid positions of a debate when they simply aren't. The correlations between race and intelligence are explained throughout the article. Onetwothreeip (talk) 22:26, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

You are responding to the wrong point. I didn't say "it's not our job to discredit things" -- I said it's not our job to decide what has been discredited. As stated in the Wikipedia principles, "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 (see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view)." This data has been published in numerous reliable, authoritative venues, including the APA, by top academics at credible institutions like U.C. Berkeley. The fact that these are minority opinions means that they should be included. If you want to show the debate, you need to show both sides of the debate. Otherwise you are violating the principle of Neutral point-of-view. --Toomim (talk) 22:58, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

We don't decide what is discredited either. We just have to recognise what is discredited and what isn't. Views which are discredited by mainstream science can be included, but they have to be explained in that context. Infamous figures like Philippe Rushton were not part of a genuine scientific debate. Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:08, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi, let's please stick to the Wikipedia principles. Can you cite any principle that says "We have to recognize what is discredited"? Or any principle that would help us determine what has been discredited, or what is genuine? I don't believe these arguments have a place in Wikipedia, and it sounds like you are using them as rationale for censoring minority viewpoints, which are explicitly encouraged in Wikipedia's Neutral-Point-of-View principle. Since this is a contentious issue, we need to come to an agreement here, or I will have to raise this to dispute resolution and have a third-party judge our arguments on the application of Wikipedia principles. Thank you. Toomim (talk) 23:45, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

It seems odd that you are saying "hi" at this particular moment. Can you cite any principle that says "We have to recognize what is discredited"? Or any principle that would help us determine what has been discredited, or what is genuine? Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Certain source are reliable, while other sources are not. For example, Philippe Rushton was not a reliable source. His work was largely discredited by mainstream science. Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:51, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Ok, so you are focused just on Rushton himself. However, this is not sufficient. The claim that "data exists showing a correlation between Race and IQ" is backed up by a great number of reliable sources. Rushton's article is only a survey paper, which summarizes them. So you would need to argue that all of these sources are unreliable. Furthermore, Rushton's article itself is reliable, in three ways. According to Wikipedia's Verifiability definition, there are three types of sources be analyzed when judging reliability: (1) the work itself, (2) the writer, and (3) the publisher. Rushton's article appeared in a prestigious peer-reviewed journal, of the APA. This is a reliable source in the highest sense, as stated in Wikipedia's definition: "If available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources, such as in history, medicine, and science." Furthermore, the authors are tenured professors at U.C. Berkeley and the University of Western Ontario, and their article cites numerous other reliable sources. Finally, your argument that Rushton is not a reliable source simply because people have tried to discredit him falls flat on its face -- that is an argument that he speaks a minority viewpoint. In order for you to claim that he is unreliable, you would need to provide actual evidence of things he has done or said that make him unreliable, not simply state that people disagree with him. Minority viewpoints are protected by Wikipedia's Neutrality principle -- one of the highest values that this encyclopedia holds. --Toomim (talk) 00:24, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

It is not that people like Philippe Rushton were in a minority view. They were simply not part of any accepted mainstream view of psychology. Anything published by him may very well be reliable in reporting his views, but they certainly aren't when describing scientific fact. It is not that some people disagree with him, it is that the scientific community disagrees with him. Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:19, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

@Toomim: How can my edit be removing or censoring the correlation when it explicitly (e.g. in the part I quoted) mentions the intelligence test score differences (between groups) in an article whose subject and title is "Race and intelligence"? The correlation is clearly mentioned and referenced in the introduction (which goes on to describe the fact that its causes are uncertain/debated and that researchers' opinions on that vary). And the article discusses the test score differences (i.e. the observed correlation between IQ scores and "racial" groups) repeatedly (it is the subject of the article). Given that, I do not understand what you think I was censoring. Skllagyook (talk) 01:08, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

@Skllagyook: No, the word "correlation" no longer exists in the text. You removed it. The intro has now censored all discussion of a correlation. The text you are referencing — which was there before your edits — actually casts doubt as to whether there is even a difference in test scores. A "difference" is not a correlation. It's a lot less than a correlation. The point of this topic is the correlation, and you have censored all speech about the correlation itself. Toomim (talk) 01:34, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

@Toomim: I am aware that I did not add the part mentioning group differences, but my edit retained it. An IQ score difference between groups (which is explicitly mentioned) is a correlation between group and IQ score - one clearly indicates the other. If there are general differences in test scores between groups/"races", then there is/would be a correlation between group/race and test scores. And I do not see any where in the introduction that casts doubt on whether there are score diferrences between groups; it states that those differences exist (the disagreement/debate described concerns the causes of said differences). Skllagyook (talk) 01:47, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

@Skllagyook: Thank you for this discussion. It is not my desire to attack you, personally, but only to come to an agreement on the text of the article. It sounds like you do actually acknowledge that there is a correlation. Can you agree to re-introducing the claim that "data shows a correlation between IQ and race" in the introduction? If so, then we can move on, and I would be happy to rescind any claims of you censoring the data. Toomim (talk) 01:57, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

You should propose what changes you want to make, and we can agree or disagree with them. It's completely inappropriate to use withdrawing attacks on anybody as a condition for getting an outcome you want. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:12, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

The change is to state "A body of data shows a correlation between IQ and race" in the introduction. Toomim (talk) 05:01, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

It's up to you to tell us why this should be in the introduction. Onetwothreeip (talk) 06:06, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

References

This article presents one side of a debate -- it is not neutral

Reader beware -- this article is biased, and denies known scientific data.

There is a debate about Race and IQ, that goes something like this:

1. Some scientists find data that Race and IQ are correlated (in 100s of studies), and present it.
2. Others argue against those claims, saying:
   • Race is hard to define
   • IQ tests are not meaningful
   • Any effects observed are due to environmental factors

However, this article only presents part 2. It does not present part 1. This is only one side of the debate. This goes against wikipedia's policy of Neutral point of view.

This can be fixed by simply including the phrase "Data shows a correlation between IQ and Race" in the introduction. Toomim (talk) 22:32, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

It would be more accurate to say that some fringe scientists claim that these correlations are based on genetic differences, which is thoroughly discredited by mainstream science. We certainly should not be pretending that discredited views are as valid as views which are scientifically accepted. Onetwothreeip (talk) 22:36, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Calling an academic "fringe" is just your subjective opinion, man. That is not neutral, and the word "accurate" does not apply because there is no data that can indicate who is fringe and who is not -- it is just your opinion. It is not our job to decide who is fringe. It is not our job to distinguish which ideas are "mainstream" and which are not. It is our job to include all majority and minority opinions that appear in reliable, published sources. Toomim (talk) 23:09, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

No, it is not my opinion that Philippe Rushton was fringe. These views are simply pseudoscience, and can only be included in that context. Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:43, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

As a scientist, I disagree strongly. This science has data behind it, replicated and validated in hundreds of studies, and has withstood peer-reviewed scrutiny of the highest degree, in the most prestigious journals. You cannot simply claim it is pseudoscience. Furthermore, this is not the criteria that matters for Wikipedia. There is no Wikipedia principle that defines "pseudoscience." Only the reliability of sources. Toomim (talk) 00:39, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

The important criteria is whether the statement "data shows a correlation between Race and IQ" comes from a reliable source. This data has been published in 100s of peer-reviewed studies (neatly summarized and referenced in the Jensen article), and even published in mainstream news outles such as Time, Newsweek, Life, U.S. News & World Report, and New York Times Magazine. These are reliable, authoritative sources of the highest degree, and the statement "data shows a correlation between Race and IQ" has ample backing and should be included in the introduction to this topic. Toomim (talk) 00:39, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

My argument is that this data should be presented in the beginning of the article, since its existence is what started the debate. I added it to the article, but User Onetwothreeip deleted it. He is now arguing that it needs to be included with the appropriate context. If he can agree to including it, then we might be able to agree. Can you agree to including it in the first paragraph of the article? If you can only agree to including it with some context, please provide citations to back up the claims you make in the context. Toomim (talk) 00:50, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

It is the reliable sources that consider work by people like Philippe Rushton and Arthur Jensen to be pseudoscience. The fact that there are differences in IQ test scores among racial groups is described throughout the article. The first sentence of the article should simply describe the topic. Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:13, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

• Our coverage of disputes is weighted according to the representation of different arguments in reliable, mainstream sources; we don't just weigh both sides equally for the sake of weighing them equally. That would be WP:FALSEBALANCE. If you think that this article is doing that weighting inappropriately, find secondary sources to cover it. --Aquillion (talk) 01:19, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Ok, I have two responses. First, the principle of false balance does not apply here, because it is for cases where two sides disagree on a fact or theory. But in this case, the opposition (in point #2) is not disputing that the data shows a correlation (in point #1), it is simply disputing how to interpret the the correlation. Points 1 and 2 are actually entirely compatible. Point 1 says a correlation exists in the data, and point 2 discusses how to interpret it. And in fact, there are no reliable scientific studies that have disproven the correlation itself (point #1). If you disagree, please provide a citation that refutes the evidence of a correlation, rather than arguing about how to interpret the correlation. Thus removing the claim in point 1 is simple censorship -- it is removing the first half of the debate, and preserving only the second. Second, the article in question by Jensen is a secondary source -- it is a survey paper that analyzes a large number of studies, and was itself cited by a number of mainstream secondary sources -- like the news outlets cited above. Toomim (talk) 01:47, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

False balance completely applies here, as the positions of people like Philippe Rushton and Arthur Jensen were thoroughly pseudoscientific. We don't portray them like we do with mainstream accepted science. Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:58, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

You are distracting the issue by attacking Rushton and Jenson -- we are simply discussing whether to include the claim "the data shows a correlation between Race and IQ." But if you are actually attacking this data correlation as pseudoscientific, then this is a very bold claim, indeed -- you are insinuating that this established peer-reviewed research by U.C. Berkeley faculty, published as recently as 2005, by the very mainstream American Psychological Association, citing about 100 peer-reviewed studies, actually fits the description of "Conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, speculative history" as defined in False Balance. Such a strong claim requires strong evidence. Please provide your evidence for discounting over 100 years of data, and the judgement of these prestigious academic journals. The Flat Earth Theory, for instance, was disproven via extensive research by Kepler in Tycho Brahe's laboratory, and took years before it as accepted, and even then, it never discounted the data -- it simply explained it better, with an alternative theory. Yet, in this case, you are arguing to censor the data itself -- to hide the fact that "the data shows a correlation between IQ and Race." That is not pseudoscience -- that is the actual raw data. You are actually arguing to hide data from this article. Not any particular viewpoint -- but the data itself. Please be careful. Toomim (talk) 04:53, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Note that the detractors are misconstruing the claim under contention. The claim is simply "the data shows a correlation between IQ and Race." It does not say anything about genetics or heritability. It does not say anything about the viewpoints of Rushton or Jenson. It does not say anything about the interpretability of the data. It simply states the data showing a correlation exists. The detractors have no evidence that disproves the data, but continue to argue against presenting this data in the Wikipedia article, and revert any edit that includes the data. This data should not be hidden, nor buried. It is at the core of the topic of Race and Intelligence. It should be mentioned in the introduction, before describing the multitude of ways to interpret it. Toomim (talk) 07:10, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm not distracting the issue at all. The issue I am raising is that people like Philippe Rushton and Arthur Jensen are being raised as part of some valid side of a debate. According to reliable sources, they are pseudoscientific. There are many instances throughout the article where the correlation between IQ test scores and racial groups are explained, so what exactly do you want in the introduction? I have never stated here that any particular correlations are pseudoscientific or otherwise wrong. Onetwothreeip (talk) 07:24, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

This is not about Rushton and Jensen. This is about the correlation. Please stop distracting the issue.

I appreciate that you said "I have never stated here that any particular correlations are pseudoscientific or otherwise wrong." If you agree with the correlation, then let's include it in the intro. I've made the edit here. Toomim (talk) 14:11, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

No consensus for that. Reverted. Do not WP:Edit war over this either. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:01, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

If we're going to talk about not making large changes to the article without consensus, where is the consensus for this change? I don't believe you can all be completely oblivious to the hypocrisy that's on display here. One the one hand you're reverting edits with the argument that there's no consensus for the change, or with edit summaries such as "restoring stable version". And at the same time you're removing more than three kilobytes of of text, that had been there for years, without waiting for any discussion about the change.

I'm not arguing this article can't be improved, and indeed, its information about the genetic basis of intelligence is several years out of date. (See the discussion here; none of the changes proposed there were actually made.) But the current approach being taken here is completely unacceptable. If editors are going to argue that large changes can't be made to the article without consensus, that applies to all large changes, not only the ones we disagree with. 2600:1004:B14B:CA91:5C12:1458:1841:B3D (talk) 00:15, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Until there's a consensus for a change, I think we should restore the last stable version, from before any of Toomim's additions and also before any of Onetwothreeip's removals. Can we please do that?AndewNguyen (talk) 06:20, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

I think the removals are broadly correct. Most of the removals seem to have targeted direct citations to Rushton and Jensen; and Onetwothreeip is correct that we should avoid citing them personally on this, since they are clearly a WP:PRIMARY source for their own opinions, and this is too controversial a subject to rely on primary sources (especially ones that are themselves so controversial.) --Aquillion (talk) 07:23, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

I addressed this point in my comment here. The article is (or rather, was) structured as a back-and-forth between Rushton / Jensen and Nisbett, both of which are controversial primary sources. (For other psychologists' views on Nisbett, see the reviews listed in the Intelligence and How to Get It article, as well as Hunt's comments on Nisbett in his textbook Human Intelligence, "Nisbett's extreme statement has virtually no chance of being true"). I have never thought this was the best way for the article to be structured, but removing the Rushton / Jensen citations while keeping those to Nisbett is not an improvement. The way the article was before, its structure at least made some amount of sense, but now it includes Nisbett's replies to Rushton and Jensen without including the arguments that he's replying to.

If the article is going to be restructured, what needs to be done is for both the Rushton / Jensen and Nisbett citations to be replaced with summaries from secondary sources. But this needs to not be done in such a haphazard manner, and the changes should be discussed beforehand. I'm not trying to be an obstructionist here. I really would like to see this article be improved, because it's about five years out of date, but blindly removing most of the Rushton / Jensen citations is the wrong way to approach the issue.

Until someone is ready to make a serious attempt at updating the article, rather than just removing the sources they disagree with, I think we should continue upholding the principle that large changes should not be made to the article without consensus. You've agreed with that principle in several other cases, so can you agree to it here? 2600:1004:B14E:4937:5035:F61F:6979:FABA (talk) 08:21, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

I also agree that going back to the working version before recent changes is a good idea. Rushton Jensen 2005 is a well regarded review written by eminent researchers, so Aquillion seems fairly wrong on it being primary source material. It's somewhat dated at this point, but there is nothing as extensive that is newer. There are some newer books by prominent researchers that also discuss the race and IQ question, e.g. Hunt's and Haier's. The latter does not cover it at length. Winegard also published a review of sorts but not in an academic journal (think it was in Quillette). Bryan Bpesta22 (talk) 00:26, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

@Flyer22 Reborn: you just rejected the claim that "Data shows a correlation between Race and IQ", saying "No consensus for that." Please state your objections, so that we can discuss them and find consensus.

I have now made this 7-word edit 3 times, and it has been reverted 3 times, with 3 different reasons for reversion:

• Sklyaggyook objected that "describing a 'large body of evidence' is somewhat non-neutral". I fixed this by removing the word "large".
• Sklyaggyook also claimed my edit was redundant, because "The correlation is clearly mentioned and referenced in the introduction". I disagreed, pointing out that the word "correlation" does not, actually, exist in the introduction, and that this is the key word that is being censored. I asked him if he could agree to including it. He stopped replying.
• Onetwothreeip objected that we cited Rushton and Jensen, whom (for some reason) he thinks aren't reliable sources. I removed the citations.

All raised objections have been addressed. What is your objection?

The data showing a correlation between Race and IQ is at the core of this debate. To remove it from the introduction you need a very good reason.

I do not want my Wikipedia to censor science. I do not want my Wikipedia to be deny science. Free the data.

Toomim (talk) 00:43, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

@Toomim: Let me explain something to you about this article. Nearly ever word of it has been argued over at length by multiple people, and getting the article to a state that wasn't being actively edit-warred over was a feat in itself. In principle, I agree with you that it would be beneficial for the existence of group differences to be mentioned in the lead section, but you can't just make a change like that with no prior discussion. Moreover, your attempt to make this change has provoked OnetwothreeIP to remove nearly every citation to Rushton and Jensen throughout the article.

As I said before, what we need to do is restore the version of the article from before any of these large changes, and then we can discuss whether there's a consensus for the changes that you or OnetwothreeIP want to make. AndewNguyen and Bpesta22 appear to agree with this course of action. Can you agree to it also? 2600:1004:B10C:8133:9590:7BC9:2600:E2CC (talk) 01:27, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

It's time we establish some truths about this article and its topic.

1. There have been found certain correlations between racial groups and IQ test scores. There is no particular reason for including this in the lead sentence or lead paragraph above other information that could be placed there.
2. Philippe Rushton, Arthur Jensen and Richard Lynn are/were not reliable sources in the field of psychology. Their views are not mainstream, largely discredited as pseudoscience, and are not considered reliable.
3. Publications by those people can only reliable sources in establishing what their views are, and that would be using primary sources.
4. Eric Turkheimer and Richard Nisbett are mainstream researchers in the field of psychology. While their work is open to criticism by other mainstream researchers, they are not discredited as scientists and their work is considered reliable by other sources.
5. This article should not be written in any way resembling an assessment of arguments that certain researchers make against each other. This would be an example of a false balance and is simply not helpful to readers in understanding the topic. Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:33, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

OnetwothreeIP, you appear to have misunderstood Wikipedia's policy regarding what sources are reliable. I'll quote the relevant part: "Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses." The Rushton and Jensen source that you've removed was published in the journal Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, which qualifies as a reputable peer-reviewed journal. You've also removed several citations to Earl Hunt's textbook Human Intelligence, which was published by Cambridge University Press. See also this part of the policy: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Biased_or_opinionated_sources

Your removals are based on the assumption that reputably published papers and books unreliable if the author is controversial, but the policy itself contradicts that. A consensus seems to be forming that this action should be undone, at least until we can properly discuss how to update the article. 2600:1004:B10C:8133:9590:7BC9:2600:E2CC (talk) 02:01, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Not everything I removed was on the basis of the sources being unreliable. When it comes to the reliability of Philippe Rushton and Arthur Jensen, their work has not been reputably peer reviewed and have most certainly not been "vetted by the scholarly community". They were publishing very fringe views, and should not be given undue weight here. Onetwothreeip (talk) 02:09, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Let me make sure I understand you correctly. Are you saying that you think the paper you've removed that was published in Psychology, Public Policy and Law, which is a journal published by the American Psychological Association, was not reputably peer reviewed? 2600:1004:B10C:8133:9590:7BC9:2600:E2CC (talk) 02:18, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

@2600:1004:B10C:8133:9590:7BC9:2600:E2CC: Yes I agree. That's a great plan. Thank you! Let's revert all recent edits and then have an organized discussion. Toomim (talk) 01:37, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Toomim, are you that IP? Be careful about how you answer that. See the following section: Wikipedia:Sock puppetry#Inappropriate uses of alternative accounts. IPs cannot be WP:Pinged. Also, my revert of you clearly stated, "Not the way to begin the lead sentence. And debated on the talk page." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:41, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that user 2600:1004:B10C:8133:9590:7BC9:2600:E2CC is my sockpuppet? I do my best to Assume Good Faith in Wikipedia, and I would appreciate it if you would return the favor. Toomim (talk) 05:30, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

@Flyer22 Reborn: Would you please explain why this is not the way to begin the lead sentence? And second, what's a better way to do it? Where should we say: "A body of data shows a correlation between Race and IQ"? Toomim (talk) 05:46, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

So you are not going to state that you are not the IP? It is easy to state that you aren't the IP. Editors are allowed to ask such questions. WP:Assume good faith doesn't mean not asking questions such as that.

You want to add "Although a body of data shows a correlation between race and IQ scores, the interpretation of this data has been a subject of debate in both popular science and academic research since the inception of IQ testing in the early 20th century." What Wikipedia articles begin with an "Although" sentence for their lead sentence? It immediately has an editorializing feel. See what WP:Editorializing states. And the "correlation" aspect is debated and has been debated above on this talk page. The lead clearly states, "There remains some debate as to whether and to what extent differences in intelligence test scores reflect environmental factors as opposed to genetic ones, as well as to the definitions of what 'race' and 'intelligence' are, and whether they can be objectively defined." And yet you want to begin with text that gives that much weight to correlation? I'm also not stating that the piece you added should be anywhere else in the lead/article. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:20, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

@Flyer22 Reborn: Please acknowledge the asymmetry here. When Toomim attempted to rewrite the article's opening paragraph, you reverted the change with the explanation "No consensus for that". (I agree that large changes should not be made to this article without consensus.) But thus far you have turned a blind eye to Onetwothreeip making a far larger change to this article without consensus, even though Andewnguyen, Bpesta22, Toomim and myself all have recently expressed the view that this change should be undone until there's a consensus for it. Do you actually think large changes to this article should not be made without consensus, which would apply to both Toomim's changes and Onetwothreeip's changes, or was your argument to that effect disingenuous? 2600:1004:B108:1795:3044:8CE2:9571:D868 (talk) 22:51, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

The editors you have listed also think that fringe researchers like Philippe Rushton and Richard Lynn are reliable sources. Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:06, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

@Flyer22 Reborn: Thank you for explaining your objection. I'm hearing two of them.

(1) You think the phrasing is too "editorial" because it uses the word "although". I'd be happy to remove the word "although", so that it simply states "A body of data shows a correlation between Race and IQ." Does that solve problem 1 for you?

(2) You said that the correlation has been "debated". But that is circular—I'm asking you what your objections are, and now you are saying that your objection is that someone on the talk page is objecting? It's almost as if you are implying that there isn't a correlation-- that the data is false. But if you are going to claim that the correlation data is false, then you need to provide some citations. And you won't find them, because the correlation data is extremely robust and reliable, and has been replicated hundreds of times. There is no debate amongst reliable scientific sources about whether the correlation exists. The debate is simply whether the cause of the correlation is nature vs. nurture.

This is the whole problem I'm bringing up. I'm just trying to include the data, but people keep censoring it without giving a clear reason. And it's not valid to censor the data because it's "debated." In debates, it's more important than ever to introduce the data into the discussion. The data is what started the debate (with two sides arguing over what causes the correlation), so the data should be given prominent weight in the introduction -- not censored. If you censor it without a good reason, then you are being biased. Wikipedia needs to be neutral. And no, I am not user 2600. I am toomim. Toomim (talk) 22:55, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

You do not understand what I'm stating and you are misrepresenting my stance. You do not understand how lead sentences, per WP:Lead sentence, should be written and how to apply WP:Due weight. Since this talk page is on my watchlist, I ask that you do not ping me to it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:34, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree broadly with Aquillion that we generally should not be using primary material by people like Philippe Rushton or Arthur Jensen as sources for this article. Onetwothreeip (talk) 10:12, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

As I've said before, this article needs to be updated, but the way to do it isn't by haphazardly removing the citations to Rushton and Jensen the way you've been doing. We should be adding new sources, replacing the older sources with new sources when necessary. Of this article's 201 citations, there are only six that are to sources published in the past four years. There are a lot of recent, high-quality sources about race and IQ that this article completely ignores.

Any large changes also need to be discussed first, and preferably one section of the article at a time. How about you suggest a specific section that you think should be updated, and then we can discuss how to update it, and hopefully reach a consensus? 2600:1004:B11B:F3A0:95BC:63A3:AD18:F38C (talk) 10:48, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

I haven't been haphazardly removing anything. I have been completely methodical in determining what should be in this article altogether, in particular weighing notability and due weight. There are not any reliable "new sources" for the claims by those like Philippe Rushton to replace them with. This article should really be merged with History of the race and intelligence controversy, retaining the name of the present article. Onetwothreeip (talk) 10:53, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Here are a few examples of sources published in the past two years that the article could be citing:

• Rindermann, H. (2018). Cognitive capitalism: Human capital and the wellbeing of nations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press - A major secondary source mostly about international differences in test scores, but that also includes a discussion about race differences, including a summary of some of Rushton's theories.
• Flynn, J. R. (2018). "Academic freedom and race: You ought not to believe what you think may be true". Journal of Criminal Justice, 59, 127–131 - A theoretical overview of the race and intelligence debate, including an explanation of why genetic explanations can't be ruled out a priori. The author, James Flynn, is one of the most prominent researchers to have ever written on this topic.
• Cofnas, N. (2019). "Research on group differences in intelligence: A defense of free inquiry". Philosophical Psychology, 33, 125-147 - Another review article summarizing the debate, which includes a good explanation of how within-group heritability relates to between-group heritability. This source could potentially replace some of the Jensen and Flynn sources currently used to explain that concept.
• Lasker, J, et al. (2019) "Global ancestry and cognitive ability." Psych, 1.1, 431-459 - A primary source, but I'm including it because I linked to it in a discussion above, and because it's the largest study yet done about the relation between IQ and biogeographic ancestry as measured with genetic tests. This study will be mentioned in Russell Warne's upcoming book, so instead of citing the study itself, we could wait and cite that secondary source when it's published next year.
• Pesta, Bryan J., et al. (2020) "Racial and ethnic group differences in the heritability of intelligence: A systematic review and meta-analysis." Intelligence, 78, 101408 - As far as I know, the largest meta-analysis ever performed about how the heritability of IQ is generally the same across all ethnic groups (meta-analyses are secondary sources). As explained in the paper, this is an important line of evidence because it's commonly assumed that if the cause of racial IQ gaps is environmental, the heritability of IQ must be lower in groups with lower average scores.
• Rindermann, H, Becker, D, & Coyle, T. R. (2020). "Survey of expert opinion on intelligence: Intelligence research, experts’ background, controversial issues, and the media". Intelligence, 78, 101406 - An update to an earlier survey about expert opinion on intelligence topics, including about the cause of the black-white IQ gap. I'm not sure whether this is considered a primary source or secondary source, but some of the older similar surveys are currently cited in the article, so this should be cited either in addition to those sources or instead of them.

I'll be blunt: if you seriously thought there are not any reliable new sources for views similar to Rushton's, it demonstrates that you know so little about this topic that you shouldn't be editing the article. This is an article about a highly technical psychology topic, and requires at least a basic level of knowledge about the subject matter and its source literature to be able to contribute to it productively. 2600:1004:B11B:F3A0:95BC:63A3:AD18:F38C (talk) 12:02, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for this compilation. I also suggest this prior study (Rindermann et al 2016) as having some relevance. It is the same survey that Rindermann 2020 draws upon. Also, Richard Haier's 2016 neuroscience book (also by Cambridge University Press) has some coverage of causes of race gaps. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AndewNguyen (talk • contribs) 04:41, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I'll be blunter, and just quote what I actually said. Reliable new sources for the claims by those like Philippe Rushton. You have copied and pasted sources which are reliable but do not support the claims of Philippe Rushton, or support the claims of Philippe Rushton but are not reliable. I'm taking this to the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard, where it's well established that these are fringe views and not reliable. Onetwothreeip (talk) 21:41, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

You are so off-topic. @Onetwothreeip: This is your 21st post, on this talk page alone, trying to discredit Rushton and Jensen. You even created your own thread to do so. Keep it there. Rushton and Jenson are irrelevant to this thread. They wrote a survey paper that's useful as a secondary source, but we certainly don't care about "the claims of Philippe Rushton". Just the data, and there are hundreds of sources for this data. User 2600 just provided 6 published sources and you haven't responded to any of it.

It looks like you are not trying to find consensus. Finding consensus requires listening to other people's arguments, and responding to what they actually say. That's how you come to an agreement. But no matter what anyone says, you respond with an off-topic rant about Rushton and Jensen. It looks like you are just trying to derail our conversations, and censor the scientific data. That is political behavior, anti-science, and deserves no place in Wikipedia. You deserve no respect unless you show you can listen to others. Toomim (talk) 22:34, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

So you agree that this article should not be relying on people like Philippe Rushton? You can find my response to the six sources in the very comment that you have just responded to. Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:15, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

This is your 22nd off-topic post on Philippe Rushton. You demonstrate no listening. This is extremely disrespectful, and matches your pattern of non-cooperativeness and deception that others are currently reporting you to Wikipedia administrators for. Toomim (talk) 00:44, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

The topic is about the fringe views of researchers such as Philippe Rushton being described here. If you want to discuss something else, you are free to do so. Onetwothreeip (talk) 00:48, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

No it's not. I started the topic. Go write your Rushton stuff in your own thread. Toomim (talk) 01:11, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

The edits in question primarily concern contentious researchers such as Philippe Rushton. Onetwothreeip (talk) 22:12, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

@Toomim: FYI, that thread on the Syrian Civil War article is not a report to Wikipedia's administrators. It's just a discussion where lots of other editors are objecting to his WP:IDHT attitude (here's another). As far as I know, no one has actually reported him yet for this pattern of behavior, although I think that's bound to happen sooner or later. 2600:1004:B147:FB3A:6CC6:688A:162A:2AF3 (talk) 00:54, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

@Onetwothreeip: You've now gotten your answer at the RS noticeboard. The answer you received there is the same thing I've been telling you from the start: reliable sources like Psychology, Public Policy and Law and Cambridge University Press don't stop being reliable when they're publishing papers by someone like Rushton, or books by people like Hunt and Mackintosh who discuss Rushton's ideas. Can you now accept that consensus opposes you, and stop edit warring to remove these sources?

Choose your answer wisely, because it may potentially affect the outcome of the ANI report currently underway about you. 2600:1004:B154:3134:D0A7:837F:DB8D:811 (talk) 19:14, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by that, but reliable sources establish that the works of those fringe authors are unreliable, even if they were initially published by reliable sources themselves. I don't think this discussion is getting anywhere productive and I certainly do not want to edit war with anybody, so I think this discussion should be opened to more participants. Onetwothreeip (talk) 22:16, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

I think the discussion here has reached a conclusion. Between this talk page and the RS noticeboard, a total of six editors have opposed the justification for Onetwothreeip's changes, or argued they shouldn't be made without consensus: myself, AndewNguyen, Bpesta22, Toomim, MaximumIdeas, and Loksmythe. Aside from Onetwothreeip himself, the only editor who's presented any arguments in favor of these changes in either place is Aquillion, so the changes are opposed by a clear consensus of six to two. (If you include Grayfell it is six to three, but he is just reverting, as opposed to engaging with any of the arguments on these talk pages.)

I'll be interested to see whether these changes continue getting restored even now that consensus opposes them. It's happened before that some of these articles were edited in a manner that completely disregarded the consensus on the talk page, but this would be the first time I've seen it happen on a fairly prominent article such as this one. 2600:1004:B141:BC42:F5EB:275D:DC3B:97D8 (talk) 21:59, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

That is absurd. Those two editors on the reliable sources noticeboard have not made any comment on how those particular researchers should be described here. You have not engaged why or how these researchers should be described by this article, only to say that their work has been published in reliable sources. Onetwothreeip (talk) 22:12, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

That's because the argument you've been making for the past two weeks, both here and the RS noticeboard, is that these sources should be removed because they're unreliable, despite being from reliable publishers. When that argument was rejected on this talk page, you made the same argument at the RS noticeboard, and it was rejected there as well.

One of the issues raised about your behavior in the current AN/I thread is your persistent WP:IDHT attitude, and a promise you made there is, "I can commit to taking much more care around potentially contentious articles." It's time to see whether or not you were sincere in that promise. Now that the argument you've been making is opposed by a consensus of six to two (or six to three), can you accept that and drop the issue? 2600:1004:B128:4BF4:3DC8:1C2A:8FBE:A2EB (talk) 22:29, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

No, the works of those fringe researchers should be included but only in proper context. They shouldn't be raised as valid and scientifically accepted research, because they aren't, according to reliable sources. I've already completely debunked your attempt at claiming that six editors support your contention, but it's also worth noting that you are including an IP editor and a user with a connection to the content. I've made no attempt to count how many editors are opposing you. Onetwothreeip (talk) 23:09, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

On this page and at the RS noticeboard, there are exactly two editors presenting arguments in favor of your changes, one of whom is you. But that's beside the point, isn't it? It's clear nothing has really changed about your attitude, and that you're going to continue making the same argument no matter how clearly consensus is opposing you. I encourage someone (perhaps @AndewNguyen:) to raise this problem in the AN/I thread, because that's likely the only way it will be addressed in the long term. 2600:1004:B12A:31F3:B824:60F3:7B3F:A0A6 (talk) 23:51, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

WP:RS does not care about authors, it cares about outlets of publication. Even if you produced 100 reliable sources that describe (e.g.) Rushton as unreliable/fringe/pseudo/emil, this has no relevance to WP:RS. So again, please stop implementing changing that do not have consensus. This article is obviously a hotspot for edit wars, which is why we must be extra diligent in following standing policy. AndewNguyen (talk) 04:22, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

@AndewNguyen: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Definition_of_a_source explicitly states that the writer of the publication is a source, and their unreliability makes the source unreliable.

You are confusing things again. You cannot conclude a source is not WP:RS source because you can find some other WP:RS source saying its author is unreliable (or any other bad adjective). The publication outlet is what determines the WP:RS reliability per Wikipedia policy. Publication outlets will generally retract material (especially articles in scientific journals) they have since determined not to be proper quality (e.g. fraudulent data), and this removes them as WP:RS, not arguments against their authors. AndewNguyen (talk) 07:26, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

@2600:1004:B12A:31F3:B824:60F3:7B3F:A0A6, I'm certainly entitled to say what I am saying. On what basis would I not be able to, or what problem are you identifying here? Please see WP:THREATEN, as this is not healthy for a talk page discussion. Onetwothreeip (talk) 05:15, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Lead section and what are the differences

Talking about the same thing you guys have been arguing about for the last month. I'm sure this will go well.

The first para goes a little something like this "1) there's a debate about race and intelligence, 2) the debate is between nature and nurture, and maybe race and intelligence are not real 3) the debate has not been settled between nature and nurture"

If this wasn't a controversial subject, I would suggest that there should be something between 2) and 3) about which races seem to have what intelligence.

But maybe there's a consensus that because of the sensitive nature of this subject, that kind of info should not go in the lead. Or maybe there should be. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 04:22, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Toomim tried to make a change along the lines of what you're describing last month, but the change was undone (correctly, in my view) because there was no consensus for it. His attempt to make that change without consensus apparently destabilized the article, leading to the subsequent massive removal of sources without consensus, and then the edit warring over those removals.

As far as I can tell, there's never been a consensus either way about whether the lead section should mention the existence of group differences in IQ averages. The lead section has sometimes mentioned their existence in the past. The mention of this seems to have been removed sometime last year, but I can't find any discussion about the removal in the talk page archives.

I think it would be beneficial for the lead section to mention the existence of group differences, but not in the way that it was worded in Toomim's edit. The mention also should be discussed and agreed on before it's added again. 2600:1004:B165:6292:1FD:8439:5DB4:2DA5 (talk) 14:53, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Lead section: proposal

Over the past month, two editors (Toomim and Peregrine Fisher) have suggested that article's lead section should possibly mention the existence of group differences in average IQ scores. Toomim's proposed addition is this edit, but it was undone by Flyer22 reborn because there was no consensus for it, and because it was an awkward way to begin the article. I'm going to try making a new proposal about the first paragraph, and see whether it can gain consensus.

I propose that first paragraph of the article should mention the existence of group differences, but not cited to the Rushton and Jensen paper, as it was in Toomim's edit. While the Rushton and Jensen paper is an reliable source that should be cited in the article's body, it also is arguing for a specific perspective about the cause of group differences, and there are equally prominent reliable sources, such as the Nisbett et al. 2012 paper, that argue for the opposite perspective about their cause. If the first paragraph is going to cite a source about the existence of group differences, that source should be one like Earl Hunt's textbook or Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns, that are giving a neutral overview of the race and intelligence debate instead of arguing for a specific viewpoint about it. However, I'm not sure it's necessary to cite a source for this statement in the lead, because the existence of group differences is discussed (and sourced) at many points throughout the article. My understanding is that the lead section doesn't require sources that are redundant with those in the article's body.

In the section above I mentioned that the first paragraph used to have a sentence about the existence of group differences, so I've looked through some past versions of the article to find how it used to describe them. Here is the article's first paragraph from two years ago. I've bolded the relevant part, which was later removed:

The connection between race and intelligence has been a subject of debate in both popular science and academic research since the inception of IQ testing in the early 20th century. While tests have broadly shown differences in average scores based on self-identified race or ethnicity, there is considerable debate as to whether and to what extent those differences reflect environmental factors as opposed to genetic ones, as well as to the definitions of what "race" and "intelligence" are, and whether they can be objectively defined at all. Currently, there is no non-circumstantial evidence that these differences in test scores have a genetic component, although some researchers believe that the existing circumstantial evidence makes it at least plausible that hard evidence for a genetic component will eventually be found.

I still can't figure out exactly when that part of the first paragraph was removed, but there's no discussion about the removal in the talk page archives, so there doesn't seem to have been a consensus for it.

Looking at the this earlier version of the first paragraph explains something I'd been wondering about in the present-day first paragraph. The first paragraph presently says, "Currently, there is no non-circumstantial evidence that these differences in test scores have a genetic component", but when the paragraph mentions "these differences", what differences is it referring to? In the present article, there is no mention of the existence of test score differences anywhere else in that paragraph. Apparently, when the first paragraph refers to "these differences", it is not referring to any differences mentioned in that present paragraph, but to differences mentioned in that paragraph earlier in the article's history, in the earlier version that I quoted. Having the first paragraph refer to an earlier version of itself in this manner is a very strange approach, and I think this is something that should be changed.

I propose that the beginning of the article's second sentence should be restored to what it was in the earlier version that I quoted, with the bolded part added back. This seems a good compromise between the proposals made by Toomim and Peregrine Fisher, and the concerns expressed by Flyer22 Reborn. @Toomim: @Peregrine Fisher: @Flyer22 Reborn: would you find this change acceptable? 2600:1004:B12E:A6F6:2077:D137:344F:D08 (talk) 22:39, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree, enthusiastically. Good work finding the old text that was deleted—I think that was the problem I have been trying to fix, without knowing it. Toomim (talk) 23:47, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

That's good enough for me. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 01:18, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Flyer22 Reborn, could you please give me your opinion about this proposal? (I'd ping you, but I just pinged you in my previous comment.) You objected to Toomim's change because it was made without consensus, so I had been hoping you would appreciate my own attempt to establish a consensus for this change before making it. 2600:1004:B126:CC0C:D965:4DEB:43CD:D991 (talk) 12:32, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I think this addition is fine. I think you should cite sources even if redundant with later page because the text in the part below might later change and the sources for the lead thus being lost indirectly. The Hunt textbook is fine for this general purpose, but Rindermann and Haier's are more up to date. AndewNguyen (talk) 23:19, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

This is an improvement over the current lede. However, I would like to note that phrase "environmental factors as opposed to genetic ones" is unclear and should be revised to "environmental differences as opposed to genetic differences." Since this is a contentious lede, I will refrain from editing without consensus. Cherio222 (talk) 19:40, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Alright with me. AndewNguyen (talk) 21:37, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Toomin is right, existence of gaps should be mentioned in the first paragraph, even if there is legitimate dispute about their source DoctorOfBiology (talk) 03:26, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

there is considerable debate as to whether and to what extent those differences reflect environmental factors as opposed to genetic ones. This is completely false, there is absolutely no considerable debate here. Mainstream science disagrees with the proposition that differences in test scores between racial groups are in any part a result of genetic differences between racial groups. This proposition is only supported by fringe sources. Onetwothreeip (talk) 20:34, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

There seems no hope of onvincing User:Onetwothreeip, however, the reader may want to consult sources such as: Rindermann et al 2020 survey, Rindermann 2018 book, Haier 2017 book, Hunt 2010 book, Neisser et al's 1996 review, Gottfredson's 1997 mainstream statement. Richard Lynn and James Flynn also have stated this at various times, probably also in WP:RS. So we have tons of mainstream and new sources for this statement, and Onetwothreeip doesn't offer any sources for his opposite claim. AndewNguyen (talk) 21:48, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

The notion that there is scholarly consensus on this subject is patently absurd. If you have a survey of intelligence researchers which suggests overwhelming agreement, please share. Cherio222 (talk) 01:21, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

What we have here are cherrypicked examples which are decidedly not mainstream, and sources that we are supposed to believe on face value are both reflective of mainstream science, and actually do state something about racial differences in test scores being to any extent genetically determined. This is not something debated by mainstream researchers. Onetwothreeip (talk) 01:42, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

It's a pretty famous subject, so what are the many sources that say that genetics have no influence? Survey study would be best. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 05:28, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

A list of mainstream scientists explicitly denouncing that conclusion, the last time this received controversy. This topic might be famous politically, but this is not something regularly debated in mainstream science, which does not regard race as a meaningful category for genetics. Onetwothreeip (talk) 05:54, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

That list is an open letter, which is quite a bit different from a survey, because with an open letter there's no way to see how many people refused to sign the statement because they disagreed with it. By way of comparison here is an open letter, signed by about the same number of reputable academics, rejecting the mainstream consensus about evolution and endorsing "intelligent design". Intelligent design is a fringe theory. Open letters like that one, or the one about A Troublesome Inheritance, exist because it's almost always possible to cherry-pick a selection of researchers who support a particular viewpoint.

The Rindermann 2020 paper linked above is the best source for judging the academic consensus on this topic, both because it's extremely current (published this month), and because it is an actual survey that tried to base its results on a representative sample of experts. 2600:1004:B16F:ED4F:AD6E:73F4:58C4:99 (talk) 09:13, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

There is no indication that this "open letter" is a reliable source. Do you have any mainstream support for the contention of "Rindermann"? Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:20, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Have any of those scientists in the open letter done a survey? Peregrine Fisher (talk) 16:31, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

This seems perfect. Can we please bring the issue over to scientific racism as well and at last change the sentence "critics argue that such works postulate racist conclusions unsupported by available evidence such as a connection between race and intelligence" to "...such as a genetic connection between race and intelligence"? This is something jps might want to take a look at, too. I hope this thread proves that I'm at least not the only editor who thinks that the opinion that there is a connection between ethnicity and intelligence is mainstream. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 16:45, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

There seems to be a consensus for this change. Onetwothreeip is opposed to it, but it's supported by myself, Toomim, Peregrine Fisher, Cherio222, AndewNguyen, and Oldstone James, so the numbers are 6 to 1 in favor. We don't have to keep arguing until Onetwothreeip is convinced, because if we wait until he's convinced this discussion will last at least until 2025. Could someone please add the restored wording to the article? 2600:1004:B15B:4D1F:95A9:A2E3:CD9A:17F7 (talk) 12:32, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't think you can declare consensus until more editors are involved, especially with the possibility of a racist viewpoint being supported in wikivoice. The article in its present form does not even cite L. Kamin's important 1974 book The Science and Politics of IQ, which exposed fraud in Cyril Burt's studies of heredity and intelligence. See Cyril Burt#"The Burt Affair", which has an extensive discussion with references. Perhaps an RfC would be appropriate, in order to get broader participation in the discussion. I came here because of a notice on WP:FTN. NightHeron (talk) 19:05, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't think there are any reliable sources published in the past 40 years that dispute the existence of group differences in IQ scores. Even Gould's The Mismeasure of Man acknowledges they exist. The debate is over how to interpret these results. That said, you're welcome to offer a counter-proposal about how to improve the lead, if you disagree with my proposal. 2600:1004:B163:A84B:BD8C:23C:F404:6147 (talk) 22:01, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

There is most certainly no consensus, particularly for any nonsense about "considerable debate". Even so, the present lead is pretty clumsy, so proposals to clarify are welcome. Also, IP editor obviously not a new user but most likely a sock puppet of some previously banned user. Par for the course in the topic area. Volunteer Marek 21:26, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Ok, so Volunteer Marek and NightHeron have doubts that consensus exists; however nobody has provided arguments against this particular change (the bolded text above). Onetwothreeip's disagreement is with a different sentence (one that already exists in the article). NightHeron wants to add a citation, but as far as I can see, this is a separate issue. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) Volunteer Marek thinks the lead is clumsy, but we can improve this in a subsequent edit. If someone disagrees with the actual change -- the bolded text -- can you please state your reasons? Otherwise, it looks like we have consensus. Please keep in mind that this is text that existed before. This proposed change is simply to reinstate it after somebody deleted it. Toomim (talk) 23:12, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Let me clarify— A consensus process only functions if the dissenters state their disagreements. Otherwise, there is no way to address disagreements, and find consensus. So it is not enough just to state "there might be somebody somewhere who disagrees." Someone needs to provide an actual counter-argument about the actual proposal. Toomim (talk) 23:17, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

What's obviously misleading in the bolded text is the phrase based on self-identified race or ethnicity. That's the classic fallacy of confusing correlation with causality. Often race or ethnicity correlates with economic class, with quality of schools, with cultural values, and many other things. The term based on suggests that it's race or ethnicity that's the root cause of differences in test scores. But there's no evidence for that. On international comparisons of math performance, white native-born Americans tend to score much lower than students in Japan, Korea, China, and Vietnam. Is that "based on self-identified race or ethnicity," or is it because students in East Asia live in cultural environments that value educational achievement more?

In any case, my basic point was that, before inserting incendiary text claiming racial explanations for differences in test scores, it's necessary to invite more editors to comment. For instance, post notices on relevant pages (perhaps WP:NPOV/N) and WikiProjects, and perhaps an RfC. NightHeron (talk) 23:51, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

By the way, I recall reading a newspaper article about a study done in Los Angeles of the math test performance of Vietnamese immigrant children as a function of number of years in America. The more years, the lower the scores. The interpretation was that as the children assimilated and adopted the values of their peers rather than the values of their parents, their academic performance declined. How does the theory of racial differences explain that?? NightHeron (talk) 23:59, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Since your objection is to the phrase "based on self-identified race or ethnicity", would you find it more acceptable if the wording were changed to say "differences in average scores between racial or ethnic groups"? That wording makes it clearer that it's referring only to the test score differences themselves, and not making any statement about their cause. 2600:1004:B163:A84B:BD8C:23C:F404:6147 (talk) 00:22, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Or how a child from another society and color, if adopted early enough and assimilated in a new society, can achieve similar success to his new peers (opportunity and local prejudices may of course have a limiting factor); how some of the "primitive" tribes people went on to become medical doctors to help their community; also the the Flynn effect that showed how environmental factors were obviously predominant versus genes. Even the same person will have varying IQ results in their lifetime depending on various factors including their health, tests selected and the competence of psychologists running it. Other than for obvious diseases, how can gene and intelligence correlation be reliably determined, let alone the actual potential intelligence of a person with the flaws of current methods? Finally, since we must go by reliable and non-primary, non-fringe sources, what can we use? The proposed sources and psychologists have been viewed with suspicion and Wikipedia attempts to be a mainstream encyclopedia, careful about using such sources, especially on sensitive topics known to be exploited to justify discrimination. We need something that shows a clear scientific consensus and that doesn't look bogus... About the lead itself, any insignificant alleged correlation would likely not be due there, but may be in the body. If there's any significant debate, isn't it on if there's any genetic correlation (that would be minimal?) We already know that it's not a main factor. —PaleoNeonate – 01:03, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to hear what editors who haven't yet commented have to say about wording of the lead. My own preference would be to mention correlation with race only in proper context. That is, test scores also correlate with economic class, with country, with gender, with educational level of parents, etc. Also, differences are not immutable over time. In places where progress has been made in providing opportunities to previously mistreated minorities, gaps in test scores have declined. NightHeron (talk) 00:47, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks NightHeron for your critique of the phrase "based-on"! I appreciate it, and think 2600's subsequent fix makes the article better. As for your claim that it's "necessary" to widely notify others to come and comment before making this change, however, I have a more nuanced view. You (and anyone else) is certainly welcome to recruit editors if you want, and any editor is welcome to dispute this edit. But I've never heard of a Wikipedia precedent of requiring editors to actively recruit people who disagree with them, to dispute the edit that they are trying to make. So the word "necessary" is too strong here. Please feel free to advertise wherever you want. But it would be good for editors to understand that this text isn't even new—it's just reverting it to what it said before. --Toomim (talk) 04:21, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Additionally, NightHeron and PaleoNeonate have just raised a couple of interesting theories on the cause of test-score differences. However, this thread is simply about how to state that the test-score differences themselves exist — getting into the causes is the nature vs. nurture debate itself! I suggest creating separate threads to discuss theories about the cause of the test-score difference, so that we can find consensus on this (limited) edit proposal. --Toomim (talk) 04:33, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Toomin is correct: intelligence researchers ranging from Nicholas Makintosh to Stuart Ritchie agree that there are race/IQ gaps. They just disagree about its causes. So the gap should clearly be mentioned in the intro, and the interpretations of it can be hashed out in the rest of the article. DoctorOfBiology (talk) 03:26, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

The entire topic suffers from begging the question and, as such, cannot be explained as though it is anything more than a controversial racist backwater of psychometrics, lauded by white supremacists to promote scientific racism. That's what the most reliable sources that are about the subject of this article either presume or explain. I have no doubt that lambasted and much-criticized (pseudo-)academics in the race realist camp have designs on how to present various IQ correlation and causation claims (I'm sure there are some active here who have swallowed some intellectual dark web red pills thinking that they've stumbled upon an idea that needs expounding), but since these Murrays and Jensens and Lynns do not deal substantively with the relevant epistemic communities (e.g., those who study the sociology of race and ethnic relations), and instead publish in predatory MDPI journals and the like, we are stuck dealing with the subject as a meta-discussion and commentary on their controversial promotions only. See WP:FRINGE. This is not an article about what the IQ is of this or that other racial group, and the lede should not be going on about any of that nonsense. Instead, this is an article about "race and intelligence" which is a catch-all term for a debunked argument based in scientific racism. To try to remove that description or to try to assert as fact the claims of race realists would be to violate the core pillars of Wikipedia such as WP:NPOV, WP:RS, and the like. jps (talk) 02:17, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

"This entire topic suffers from begging the question" — Would you care to explain how your comment relates to the bolded text in this proposal? It sounds like you are criticizing the entire article as "Begging the question". However, if you are advocating for deleting the article, that should be proposed in a separate thread. I understand that this is a controversial topic, but we need to stay on topic if we are going to make any progress improving the article. Thank you. Toomim (talk) 04:45, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

It simply isn't the case that research about this article's topic is only published in fringe or predatory journals. Look at my comment at 12:02 26 December, and AndewNguyen's comment at 21:48, 18 January. In my comment I cited one MDPI paper (the Lasker 2019 study), but in those two comments AndewNguyen and I together cited four papers on this topic from Elsevier journals, one paper from a Routledge journal, one paper from the flagship journal of the American Psychological Association, and three books from Cambridge University Press. Mind you, my own comment was only referring to sources published in the past two years. If you want a list of books and papers on this topic from mainstream publishers over the past decade, it would be possible to list several dozen, but that's a waste of time.

The topic of race and intelligence even is covered in some general-level psychology texts such as Kalat's Introduction to Psychology. Kalat thinks that racial IQ gaps are mostly due to differences in motivation, but he accepts that they exist, and that investigating their cause is a valid area of study.

I'm fine with others wanting this discussion to get more attention, but I question the utility of comments from people who don't follow the relevant academic literature, and whose comments are based on their outrage and disbelief that a mainstream journal or book publisher would cover this topic. What this article really needs is more attention from people who follow the professional literature about psychology and genetics, and who can help make the article a better reflection of this topic's coverage in that literature. I'm pretty sure that User:Tim bates is a professional psychologist and neuroscientist, so I'd encourage him to comment here. 2600:1004:B163:A84B:BD8C:23C:F404:6147 (talk) 06:13, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

• Well this looks like a terrible idea. Crowbarring in text claiming that there are racial differences in intelligence, when most of the article describes the reaosns why that's a facile and substantially incorrect conclusion, doesn't serve the reader -unless of course they happen to be a white supremacist, but we don't care about thsoe guys. Guy (help!) 09:55, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Toomim: To clarify, I did not mean that you have to recruit editors who disagree with you; it would be contrary to Wikipedia policy to require that. You simply need to notify editors impartially, according to Wikipedia policy.

If differences in test scores are placed in proper context, it will be clear that academic consensus is that they're due to all sorts of other causes (ranging from differences in economic class and educational opportunities to cultural bias in the tests) and not genes. The fact that eminent academic personalities have on occasion supported racist pseudoscience does not show that it's not racist pseudoscience. For example, Cyril Burt, who's not mentioned in the article, was long regarded as the father of educational psychology. He was even knighted. His identical twin studies were widely cited (e.g., by Herrnstein) to support theories of race differences in intelligence. It turned out that Burt's identical twin studies were fraudulent. NightHeron (talk) 12:24, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

In spite of a lot of users opining that this is a bad idea, a user decided to reinsert the material anyway: [7]. I suggest reverting this change that is against consensus. jps (talk) 20:57, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Source for a good survey of studies

I'm getting the feeling that the only studies and surveys on this subject are by scientists (call them A) who are considered "racists" by other scientists (call them B). So there are two types of sources. Studies and surveys by A, and criticism of such studies and surveys by B. Is that correct? Peregrine Fisher (talk) 20:18, 19 January 2020 (UTC)

We don't determine Wikipedia content on feelings. Onetwothreeip (talk) 19:44, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Recent survey of anthropologists by Horowitz et al 2019 is of some but marginal interest. Anthropologists generally not considered experts on this topic. However, among them, there was some support. 14% were supportive of Ashkenazi Jew vs. European gentile gap being genetic to some degree. 57% were opposed so a lot of undecided subjects, and a ratio of of about 4 to 1. I am not familiar with the authors, but they don't seem like the typical IQ researchers. There wasn't a question about the black-white gap. --AndewNguyen (talk) 22:07, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Notice to the IP editor

I think that everyone else here has a discretionary sanctions alert for the intersection of race/ethnicity and human abilities and behaviour. As you are editing from a dynamic IP it's not easy to see messages on the various talk pages so I took advice on what to do and I've given the alert to the latest address I saw, User talk:2600:1004:B15B:4D1F:95A9:A2E3:CD9A:17F7 and am linking that here to make sure you see it. Doug Weller talk 13:56, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

@Doug Weller: I saw the alert when you posted it on my user talk page, so it wasn't necessary to post it here also. However, you forgot to give an alert to Grayfell and Volunteer Marek. Or are you only giving them to editors who are participating in this talk page, as opposed to those who are reverting with no talk page participation? 2600:1004:B15B:4D1F:95A9:A2E3:CD9A:17F7 (talk) 14:45, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

I was advised to do both. Only notifying you at one of your IP addresses wouldn't help other editors determine if you'd been alerted. Grayfell has contributed to a discussion about this area at WP:AE in the last 12 months so he should not be given another alert. I missed the fact that VM's alert was in Dec. 2018 so over a year old and so I've given him one. Doug Weller talk 16:21, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Reverts

Was this per consensus? https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Race_and_intelligence&type=revision&diff=936758036&oldid=936757355 Peregrine Fisher (talk) 02:41, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

No. I, for one, dispute this change by User:ජපස to the lede, and there was zero discussion of it on this talk page. Edits to the lede need to have discussion on this page first, as we have established in the threads above. This change should be reverted, and if ජපස wants to make this change, he/she should start a topic to discuss it here on the talk page and build consensus first. FYI, my problem with this change is that it provides less information than it did before, by replacing "reflect environmental differences as opposed to genetic differences" with "can be attributed to various causes". --Toomim (talk) 05:02, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

No. This achieves nothing but making the lede less clear. User:ජපස has claimed that explaining a group difference (i.e. a difference in test results) in terms of environmental differences (as opposed to genetic differences) relies on the false dichotomy of "nature versus nurture." This is a complete misunderstanding; it is the opposite. To claim that either "environmental factors" or "genetic factors" in themselves are "causing" a phenotype would be promoting a false dichotomy. That is precisely why the lede was previously revised. To claim that differences in phenotype are either attributable to differences in environment or differences in genotype is consistent with standard academic usage and understanding of these terms. Cherio222 (talk) 07:24, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Peregrine Fisher, Seems OK to me. It's more concise and easier to read, while remaining accurate. Guy (help!) 09:52, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

The new wording is better, per WP:FALSEBALANCE. NightHeron (talk) 11:51, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

No, it wasn't, and I suggest that jps self-revert before this turns into another massive feud. As to the edit, this was a simple misinterpretation of the text. The sentence "to what extent... scores reflect environmental differences as opposed to genetic differences" in fact implies that there is no dichotomy between the two, as indicated by the word "extent". On the contrary, the sentence implies that many combinations of environmental and genetic factors are possible, which rules out a strict dichotomy. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 20:19, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Hey NightHeron, I believe you are reverting to a new form that does not reflect consensus. Are you looking at the history and this talk page to inform your revert? Or you just think stuff is racist? Peregrine Fisher (talk) 20:25, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Here's how my reverts compare to a week ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Race_and_intelligence&type=revision&diff=936885011&oldid=936149620 Basically the same. The reverts other than my own are the ones trying to change the article without consensus. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 20:32, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Hey, Peregrine, you used Rollback inappropriately. jps (talk) 20:35, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Edit-warring

@NightHeron: and @ජපස:, please stop edit-warring without consensus. If you have an issue with the wording, please raise it here. @Peregrine Fisher:, lack of consensus alone does not justify acts of edit-warring; if your reverts have been reinstated, it's best to argue your case here. Simply edit-warring on a contentious topic will lead us nowhere, and if this continues, the article will simply be put on a lock, and some users may be blocked here and there, but no progress will be made - a lose-lose for both parties. It will be much more efficient to discuss the appropriate issues here instead of taking to the article page right away. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 20:30, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Don't ping me again, Oldstone James. Thanks. jps (talk) 20:35, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

A little edit warring in support of the current and historical consensus is sometimes warranted. This place is such a ghost town, maybe this will draw in an admin who can lock this down into the wrong version. Probably what is needed. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 20:35, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

I hadn't realized that someone can be accused of edit-warring on a page if they'd only made one edit on that page since becoming a Wikipedia editor. What a peculiar use of the term edit-warring! And I did explain my reason for reverting -- namely, that we should be especially cautious about inserting text that can easily be perceived as racist.

I think that rather than edit-warring with the hope of getting an admin angry at us, as suggested by Peregrine Fisher, a better way to keep this discussion from being a "ghost town" would be to post notices on relevant talk pages, noticeboards, and WikiProjects.

Concerning the latest inserted text -- While tests have broadly shown differences in average scores between self-identified races and ethnicities, -- it is not so clearly uncontroversial and is not so clearly an improvement. What does broadly mean here? Always? Most of the time? In certain countries? Between different countries? What kind of tests? All tests? Most tests? Certain types? Or is this left to the reader's imagination? NightHeron (talk) 21:14, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. Also not specified: Which test? What are the differences? How are the averages taken? What scheme is used for participants to self-identify their race or ethnicity? All of these contentions are left unexplored by the race realist fringe theorists and are the obvious unanswered claims from the nonsense laundry lists that I see being promoted above.

Just to be clear, the technique of listing a lot of obscure and low-cited articles and then claiming that there is "growing agreement that I'm right" is a classic WP:POV pushing trope at this website. The status quo is that such psychometric claims are the purview of racist argumentation to such an extent that a number of the sources used at this very article now carry rejoinders explaining that the article does not mean what many racists have interpreted it to mean. There has also been at least one article written criticizing Wikipedia for accommodating people who take this argument about race and intelligence to mean something intrinsic about races.

We should start cleaning house here, I think.

jps (talk) 21:25, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

All of your questions are answered later on in the article. A lede isn't meant to give a detailed analysis of the article in question. Instead, it's meant to summarise the contents of the article, which this sentence successfully achieves. If you disagree with this exact edit, would you care to provide an alternative phrasing? If your issue is with the fact that intellectual differences exist between different ethnic groups, then please do provide at least one reliable source which disputes this notion. So far, not a single source has been provided in favour of this idea. On the other hand, numerous sources have been provided the other way, including a comprehensive survey about the stance of the scientific community on the issue. The idea that ethnic intellectual differences exist is about as unanimous as it gets. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 22:08, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

These questions are not answered in the article because the hasty generalization is fallacious. In fact, this sort of psychometric nonsense is exactly the sort of racist bullshit these people have been pulling for decades. Wikipedia does not need to parrot their propaganda. jps (talk) 22:17, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

If you believe that, please provide a source for your claims, as I've already asked you on at least a couple of occasions. Reliable sources don't seem to agree with you that this is hasty generalisation. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 22:30, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Step out of your WP:Walled garden for a bit and look at some of the papers that are not within the little citogenesis backwaters of Lynn, Jensen, et al. Start with the 140-odd papers which cite this work. jps (talk) 23:52, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks for this comment. It's now clear to me that starting a feud wasn't your intention, but I still believe that your edit wasn't appropriate, because it simply reinstated something which was reverted twice before - which also happened to be an edit which lacked consensus. I believe that this is an act of edit-warring, but that's not important at all given that you won't keep making similar edits in the future. I agree with you that the comment by Peregrine Fisher wasn't necessarily appropriate.
• As to the edit itself, I see your concerns. I think what you're implying is that this is a case of WP:WEASEL, and I think I broadly agree (pun intended). The intention was clearly to emphasise that these differences are not always defined, but, upon further inspection, it does look ambiguous. Do you have a better suggestion? I think removing the word "broadly" will do, but I'm not sure everyone will agree. What's your take on this? ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 21:35, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

@Oldstone James: I don't see any big problem with the first two sentences as they are now, but the third sentence would be much clearer if it were simplified as follows: Currently, there is no evidence that differences in test scores have a genetic component, although some researchers believe that it is plausible that evidence for a genetic component will eventually be found. Another possibility that would be even better would be to delete the last part of the sentence, starting with "although," since it is speculative and really has no content.

The trouble with putting in speculation about genetic components in intelligence between different population groups is that most people assume, consciously or unconsciously, that we're saying that racial minorities and women will end up on the bottom. If we want to indulge in wild speculation, it would be more plausible, in my opinion, to conjecture that women will turn out to be genetically superior to men in intellect. (Women have about 19 trillion brain cells, whereas men have only about 16 trillion; and during the last 3 or 4 decades women have made tremendous inroads into many highly intellectual professions, despite the continuing obstacles of prejudice, discrimination, harassment, stereotype threat, greater burdens of childcare and eldercare, retrograde family pressures, etc. One could doubt whether men could have made such advances in the face of comparable obstacles. And analogous comments could be made about racial and ethnic minorities that had to overcome formidable barriers.) But probably for Wikipedia purposes the best option would be to remove speculation from the lead.

The trouble with talking in the lead about differences in test scores between population groups is that there's probably no room in the lead to put this in a proper context. Test scores correlate with all sorts of things -- economic class, educational level of parents, quality of schools, country of residence, rural vs city, cultural values, etc. -- and referring only to the differences between races and ethnicities gives the misleading impression that the racial or ethnic classification of people explains those differences. In reality, it's entirely possible that if we could completely control for other factors, there would be no difference at all or the difference would disfavor whites. NightHeron (talk) 22:45, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Okay, a couple of points to discuss here. First, the part about having a genetic component. I see that some people may not interpret it the right way, but everything that is currently there in the lede is factually true. While it is speculative that genetics have any explanatory power over the differences, it is still worth mentioning what the scientific community's stance on this topic is, as, like you rightly pointed out, that is likely what the reader is wondering about at that point. Not mentioning that at all may leave the lede up to the reader's interpretation.

Your second point is your take on the knowledge gap that exists with regards to the genetic component of racial/sexual genetic differences. You point out that women are more likely to be genetically superior to men in intellect; however, based on research into the IQ scores of men and women living under roughly the same circumstances, it appears that there are no major differences between the two genders (some of this research is described in this article). Now my opinion: the barriers that you have described did exist in the past, but in the modern world, in the first world, the impact of these barriers, if they even exist, is minimal. Furthermore, with attempts to annihilate these barriers such as positive discrimination, it's more than possible that these barriers have been completely overturned. Now, the only significant barriers that exist are rooted in the culture surrounding traditional gender roles, which is very often embraced by women themselves. However, these barriers can be easily eliminated for research purposes by taking a sample of men and women who are living under similar circumstances, which is what the research described above has done.

Your last point is about why correlation between race and intelligence should be singled out among other existent correlations. The reason is that the title of the article is "race and intelligence", and while it is important not to mislead the reader into thinking that there is any definitive causality between the two, it is also equally important to specify that there is correlation. If you want to eliminate this chance of misleading the reader, I think it is better to make it clearer that causality is not certain than to remove a summary of the community's stance on the topic of the article. Furthermore, the fact that differences between ethnic group exist is already implied by the article, but I don't see anyone having any issues with that. But I do have an issue: the article mentions "differences in intelligence test scores", but it doesn't make it clear what these differences are, and between what. The nature of my complaint is very similar to your criticism of the word "broadly": the article, as it stands now, makes it ambiguous who the differences are between and what they are. My edit doesn't add any new information but simply solves this problem of ambiguity. What's your opinion on this problem? ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 23:16, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

"Currently, there is no evidence that differences in test scores have a genetic component" is false since there is tons of indirect evidence. The sources usually distinguish between indirect and direct evidence, and state while there is plenty of the former, there is little of the latter, or none, depending on strictness of criteria (e.g. APA review). However, there are several such studies now that provide direct evidence, though none of them conclusively so. However, the secondary sources used in this article are somewhat old, and do not reflect the current evidence base. So, we could add a sentence like this, but it will probably have to be changed very soon when some secondary source covers this evidence base. I believe that Rindermann's 2018 book already covered some of it, so could be used already. Section 10.7 in his book summarizes some of this evidence. It's a secondary source and high in WP:RS, so ought to be used here. --AndewNguyen (talk) 23:01, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Not my phrasing, but I assume the idea is to communicate that tests generally show gaps between race/ethnic groups, across many countries, many tests, and many years. So broadly, here is referring to the research output, which generally shows such differences. This is not controversial. Although there are remaining questions open about measurement bias, generally differences are thought to not reflect test bias to a large extent (sometimes, of course, e.g. with language bias on non-native speakers). I think "generally" would be a good substitute for "broadly" there. AndewNguyen (talk) 21:57, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

"Generally" is still a weasel word. I think just removing a qualifier altogether should work. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 22:01, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, sometimes gaps are not found, and this can also be of interest when they were expected. Many studies, for instance, do not show gaps between Europeans (whites) and Asians in the USA. These groups appear to be close in average IQ, so whether a gap is seen or not (that is, whether it is statistically significant) depends somewhat on chance and study context (e.g. study done in Oklahoma or California?). In this case, a word like "general" is quite accurate. --AndewNguyen (talk) 22:13, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I think the word "generally" removes the ambiguity. Common WP:WEASEL words are considered acceptable for use in the lede section where appropriate. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 22:25, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

The text is wholly unacceptable whether you use "generally" or "broadly". jps (talk) 22:30, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Aaaaand you still haven't justified this opinion with even a single source. Sorry, buddy. If you want to make a claim on Wikipedia, you need to back it up with reliable sources. Otherwise, it will qualify as WP:OR. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 22:46, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Before you can talk about statistical differences, you must cite this article [8]. Unnoticed by the crowd, obviously. Good luck with your snark. jps (talk) 23:10, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Notice how the paper criticises the notion of arbitrarily designated races rather than the actual intellectual differences. In fact, the existence of intellectual differences is implied in this sentence, "...show that there is much more variation within groups designated as races than between such groups". Furthermore, even if you do manage to dig out a source which disputes the existence of any variation between ethnic groups, that will be a good start, but it will still be one source. One source is nowhere near enough. There are already dozens of sources provided the other direction. Either you find a comprehensive survey, like the one done by Rindermann (which shows that the consensus is that there is variation), or tough luck. By the way, not everything that challenges your opinions on something is a "snark". Come on, let's stop with this fighting. There is no place for it here. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 23:25, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

You missed the point. You cannot make categorical declarations when the categories themselves are suspect. It is easy for me to say that all blue-eyed people as a group perform worse on my tests than brown-eyed people or vice-versa, but until you can couch that appropriately within the context of the article I cited and about 400 others also cited, you aren't prepared to talk about how to properly summarize the literature in a powder keg like this. Competence is required. You don't got it. jps (talk) 23:34, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

No, I didn't miss the point. This is so tiring... If I don't agree with your point, it doesn't mean that I missed it. The proposed edit clarified that differences only exist between races that are self-defined. Furthermore, the title of the article is "race and intelligence". While it is true that looking for differences in intelligence between different races is not a rigorous method of research, if the topic of the article is "race and intelligence", I'm sorry, but we need to talk about these exact differences. If the name of the article was "eye colour and intelligence" then the fact that differences exist would still have to be mentioned. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 23:56, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Let me explain to you how this works, kiddo. You have read a bunch of poorly-cited papers that argue for racist ideas and a bunch of papers that are mainstream which are actively reinterpreted by race realists to make points that they do not. I am pointing you in the direction of the WP:MAINSTREAM critique of this approach. If you cannot understand that, it means that you don't have anythin to contribute to this discussion. jps (talk) 23:58, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

Okay, here is a question, jps. Do you really believe that what you are doing is helping any of us? Be honest. Launching personal attacks, asking for an extension to my topic ban, lying about my edits, all because of some insignificant bits of criticism that I've directed at you? Is it all really worth it? I won't appeal anywhere or ask for bans or blocks, because that's just another useless thing that I can do that won't do anyone any good. But, don't you think that you should follow your own advice and tone it down a little bit? I really think that we can collaborate together really well, because, believe or not, we're actually on the same page about a lot of issues, but we need to cut out the bitterness out of our encounters first. You see, by throwing this tantrum, you've wasted both my and your time, without achieving anything of significance. This useless venom is driving all the energy out of both of us and for no good reason. Forget about even me, think about yourself. I can guarantee that you're feeling as exhausted as I am right now. Let's stop fighting like little kids and actually get down to useful stuff, whether it be in real life or on Wikipedia, because all this petty talk that we're doing right now is a useless piece of crap that literally just murders huge chunks of our lives. A week from now, you'll look back at how you spent your time and say, "I've done absolutely nothing in this entire time". I'm already having this moment now. Honestly, let's just stop, man. I'm out of this crap, anyway. And if you decide that you want to waste your time, which I genuinely and empathetically suggest you don't, I simply won't respond to your provocations. But this is my last attempt at convincing you. Please take this message seriously, even if you don't agree with the first part of this comment. ^{O̲L̲D̲S̲T̲O̲N̲E̲}_{J̅A̅M̅E̅S̅?} 00:55, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

You're personalizing things and impugning the motives you think I have that do not exist. I also did not mention any of your edits in the comment you are responding to, so please stay on subject. I've pointed out the problems. You can either take them on board or not. jps (talk) 01:33, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

You just called an editor with whom you disagree "kiddo." I suggest familiarizing yourself with WP:Civility before condescending to others. Cherio222 (talk) 03:13, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

AndewNguyen, and, as the article explains, that shows exactly nothing about racial differences in actual intelligence, so should not be included in the lead because it's fringe. Guy (help!) 22:54, 21 January 2020 (UTC)

We need something like this Talk:Donald_Trump#Current_consensus. Each change gets a discussion which is sorted and linked to. Then we can ask an admin to implement it. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 01:57, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

A Comment

I really don’t want to wade into this mess, but I do think that it would be useful to clarify what the consensus is *in psychology*, at the very least. Here is an opinion piece that should be readily comprehensible to all, by Turkheimer, Harden, and Nisbett — who are unquestionably mainstream, *commenting on what the mainstream is*. A relevant quote:

“All three of us are academic psychologists who have studied human intelligence, and it is our contention that Murray’s views do not represent the consensus in our field. We start by noting that we accepted as facts many claims that are controversial in the academy, if not in psychology — that IQ exists; that it predicts many life outcomes; that there is a gap between black IQ scores and white IQ scores; that IQ is at least partly heritable (as is almost every human trait). We rejected the conclusion that Murray and Harris say is virtually inescapable: that it follows that the black-white difference in IQ must be partly genetic.”

Hölderlin2019 (talk) 02:08, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

I think that's good info. A summary of that should almost be the opening paragraph of the article. Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:11, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

That's an instructive quote. I recall listening to an eminent scholar explaining a fundamental logical fallacy among the race difference theorists. He took care to explain the fallacy in a way that would be clear to students. He said: Individual height variation among cows is largely a matter of heredity. Imagine that a group of cows is randomly separated at birth into two groups. Suppose that one of the two groups is fed well and treated well, and the other group is fed poorly and treated poorly. The average height of the first group will be larger than the average height of the second group, and the explanation for the group difference will have nothing to do with genes.

This article is basically about a fringe theory that has a long and grim history. The article should explain that clearly and consistently. We should not in any way suggest that there might be some validity in racist pseudoscience. NightHeron (talk) 03:17, 22 January 2020 (UTC)