Talk:History of the race and intelligence controversy

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

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

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

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

Discovery of differences in incidence of IQ gene variants

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

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This paragraph should be included:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I'll just note that a number of editors strongly disagree with most of the FAQ's claims. See the old discussion here [1] and here [2]. The FAQ answer about political correctness is particularly bad and misleading, as evidenced by this recent New Yorker article.[3] Stonkaments (talk) 18:16, 17 September 2021 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

The answer was an ad hominem against Piffer and an assertion that Intelligence publishes racist pseudoscience. The fact that a journal publishes information that appears to you to be "racist" to you does not make it pseudoscience. Is the information factually correct, yes or no? Is Piffer's methodology sound, yes or no? No one is even denying that it is true that the genetic variants for IQ are not evenly distributed across races. If you really do not like Intelligence just keep the WSJ and a link to Bruce Lahn's Wikipedia article and that is that. I know I am meant to assume good faith, but I cannot help but think that the exclusion of this paragraph is motivated by politics, not the science or even Wikipedia's policies.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.149.193.190 (talk • contribs)

(response to unsigned comment) Since Davide Piffer's writings about race are at issue, it's not an ad hominem attack to mention his extreme racialist views; see [4]. NightHeron (talk) 10:15, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

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

These are important scientific results that lie at the heart of the topic of this article. Wikipedia is the largest online encyclopedia in the world, its readers should not be kept from this information for brazen political reasons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.149.193.190 (talk • contribs)

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

Well if you look into what happened with Lahn, he stopped doing his research in this area because it was getting "too controversial". How is this an extraordinary claim? Is the WSJ not a reliable secondary source? As I said earlier, you can corroborate Piffer's results for yourself by simply inputting the SNPs from his study in this database: https://popgen.uchicago.edu/ggv/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.149.193.190 (talk • contribs)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OK, we can rephrase the paragraph:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You've acknowledged that the consensus of Wikipedia editors is against what you're saying, so it's time for you to move on. You're refusal to drop the stick is becoming disruptive, and other editors have better things to do with our time than to keep up this pointless discussion. NightHeron (talk) 09:25, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Fine, clearly those surveys and papers do not actually exist. 93.149.193.190 (talk) 13:52, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

References

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

Making the article more complete and balanced

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How about we add this one to the intro:

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

Piffer replicated his replicated his results using more SNPs and published them on psych. We can add the caveat at the end if it makes you guys feel better.

93.149.193.190 (talk) 17:47, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

No, for all the same reasons laid out last time. - MrOllie (talk) 17:54, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Do you have any objections against Psych as a journal?

Let me remind you that: All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.

And: This policy is non-negotiable, and the principles upon which it is based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, nor by editor consensus.

Even if you ALL agreed this info should be censored, it should still be on Wikipedia.

93.149.193.190 (talk) 17:57, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

References

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Letting people check for themselves

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How about we add it like this:

Nonetheless, in recent years scientists have found thousands of the SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) associated with educational attainment (a close proxy for IQ) in what are known as genome-wide association studies. It is now possible to check whether these genetic variants are evenly distributed across races in publicly available databases. 5.171.96.57 (talk) 19:04, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

References

Disagree, as these are still very tenuous findings and we already know that race maps very poorly onto SNPs. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:10, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

What findings? the genome wide significant associations with EA or the fact that you can check their incidence by race in a publicly available database? 5.171.96.116 (talk) 01:11, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

That's not how Wikipedia works. We depend on reliable mainstream secondary sources to evaluate primary sources. We don't present statements sourced to primary sources, such as a technical database, and "let people check for themselves". NightHeron (talk) 02:02, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. None of those sources have anything to say about the history of the race and intelligence controversy. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 02:06, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree with the points made by User:Shibbolethink and User:NightHeron. Also, much is not understood about these SNPs and their effects accross (and even within) groups. For instance, many of the SNPs have been found to be less predictive of educational attainment in groups of African descent than in groups of European descent. (As I have written before) It is in doubt that all of the alleles/combinations thereof predictive of educational attainment in Europeans will necessarily be equally so in distant populations such as Africans (who may also have their own EA alleles less found in Europeans). (As European, and increasingly Asian, populations have been significantly more sampled and studied than African populations in this regard.). (Even in groups of European descent, the amount of variance they influence is small, not yet well understood, and possibly/sonetimes overestimated.)

From: https://www.geneticsandsociety.org/biopolitical-times/genes-success-not-exactly

"In some studies this is what is suggested, and it is mentioned that genes that seem to influence educational attainment in groups of European descent have significantly less predictive power for African Americans. First, our within-family analyses suggest that GWAS estimates may overstate the causal effect sizes ... Without controls for this bias, it is therefore inappropriate to interpret the polygenic score for educational attainment as a measure of genetic endowment. Second, we found that our score for educational attainment has much lower predictive power in a sample of African-American individuals than in a sample of individuals with an European ancestry ..."

Thus making an addition such as that proposed above would also seem to be unjustified and misleading. What can be meaningfully "checked" or concluded is hardly apparent for a non-specialist reader from raw data and primary sources, and should instead, if presented, be sourced from a reliable secondary source(s). Also, since none of the proposed sources mention both race and intelligence, such an addition here would be a fairly clear case of WP:Synthesis. Skllagyook (talk) 02:22, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Ok, how about for now we add the first sentence like this:

In recent years scientists have found thousands of the SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) associated with educational attainment (a close proxy for IQ) in what are known as genome-wide association studies. Collectively, these SNPs account for about 10% of the variance in educational attainment in European populations.

And then we add:

Whether these SNPs are evenly distributed across races and the significance of said findings remains controversial.

References

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

Adding the latest genetic research

How about adding it like this?

In recent years scientists have found thousands of the SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) associated with educational attainment (a close proxy for IQ) in what are known as genome-wide association studies. Collectively, these SNPs account for about 10% of the variance in educational attainment in European populations. The distribution of these genetic variants across races is consistent with the environmental explanation for observed racial differences in IQ scores. 93.149.193.190 (talk) 17:07, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

References

• 93.149.193.190 was blocked for edit-warring on this article on 15 September 2021. As a result the article was semi-protected for one year by User:EdJohnston. There have been persistent copy-cat attempts by IPs from Milan to add to the lede variants of a proposed new paragraph (e.g. just above). None of these proposals have gained consensus from regular editors. Might it therefore not be a reasonable idea to semi-protect this talk page for a brief period (one month?), as EdJohnston previously suggested on WP:ANI?[5] Mathsci (talk) 17:53, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

  Yes I would agree with semi protection. When there are attempts to IP hop or repeatedly use different IPs to introduce the same content against consensus on the talk page, I think it is warranted for a short period. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:00, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

  @Mathsci I would recommend WP:RFPP. They may do nothing but it's at least worth a try... — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:24, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

  Done. Mathsci (talk) 23:44, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks to El_C for responding to the semi-protection request and logging it so promptly. Mathsci (talk) 07:09, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Whats wrong with that paragraph guys. I would have thought you would love it. 93.149.193.190 (talk) 18:20, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

As explained, this proposal is synthesis/original research, which is against Wikipedia policy. Skllagyook (talk) 23:02, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

It is neither and you know it. Both articles are published in reputable scientific journals. The paragraph says exactly what the articles say. The only reason you do not want the content to be included is because, even though the article says they do not, the polygenic scores in fact DO support a genetic component to the gap. And you hate the idea that people might actually check and realise what these polygenic scores mean.