Talk:Race and intelligence

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Lead Discussion

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • WARNING!!!

This entire article is misleading and dishonest. More specifically the second paragraph in the intro foreshadows the bias of the article. Natural racial differences as the source of IQ differences is proven through thousands of studies over the last 90 years and is the view accepted in the academic and scientific community, not vice-versa. There is no substantiated data that disproves this view, therefore, this should be the view of the article. Also, when referring to the academic and scientific community this should only refer those who actually research psychometrics!!!!!! Stop damaging Wikipedia's credibility. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a blog.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • WARNING!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ant256 (talk • contribs) 02:14, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the image to the right would be acceptable for illustrating both the differences as well as the considerable overlap between group scores in the US. I'm assuming Mathsci (and perhaps others) have an objection? Btw, I'm entirely flexible on this. --Aryaman (talk) 10:14, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I think this is fine in the main body of the text where more context is provided. The lede has been written with reference to worldwide IQ testing, not just the US, so that would be another factor arguing against its prominent inclusion in the lede. For the time being it seems best to concentrate on content rather than images, which can be moved around at a later stage. Mathsci (talk) 10:19, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree that this image belongs in the lead. David.Kane (talk) 12:33, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

YES, definitely. This is what the whole article is about, and It's both blatant POV and outrageous that there is even any question about it. BTW, Mathsci, you are SO biased and the things you've said SO slanted that you should be locked out of this page. Furthermore, I believe your attempts to shut down this article and shout down editors is so extreme as to be wiki-actionable TechnoFaye Kane 03:46, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Can I just ask if someone has checked to make sure this image really appears in the source cited and that it is real data from a wide-ranging survey of some kind? I ask because I find it incredible that four groups were tested and found to have very different average IQ's, yet they all had the EXACT same frequency distribution of IQ relative to the mean. Studying human height you will find that more deprived populations tend to have wider bell curves, because diseases that stunt growth don't affect everybody, they come hit-or-miss. I would expect intelligence to behave the same way unless it really is 100% genetic with no environmental influences at all. If that's what the data says, then I have no objections, but I just want to be sure we're not letting false information into the article under the assumption that it's legitimate. —Soap— 13:15, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I've seen this graph before (and even posted it on my blog). It was used to illustrate the IQ gap, but not the distribution (I've seen the correct one, and the curve for the blacks is more spread out and therefore also lower) I'll try to find it. TechnoFaye Kane 03:46, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Well this is a moot point, I suppose, but if the graph isn't even correct it's a wonder it survived in the article for four years. I would like to see the correct graph if you can find it. —Soap— 12:30, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

With regard to the new lead, I have been bold and made some (minor?) changes. Outside of that, I think that the new second paragraph is excellent, albeit a bit wordy. But my main concern is that there are no citations to support it. Then again, everything in there is supported later in the article. Question: Wouldn't it be a good idea to cite at least a few things here, at least the APA report? David.Kane (talk) 13:02, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

With regard to the third paragraph, are there other academic bodies besides the APA that have made "official statements" which concluded that "the cause of the racial IQ gap is currently unknown?" Not that I know of . . . . David.Kane (talk) 13:12, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

I think using the image in the lead is a bad idea, even if Soap's concerns are unfounded, the image completely adopts and lends legitimacy to the both of the problematic categories of "race" and "intelligence" without conveying any of the problems involved in their definition. I would find it misleading in the lead, but appropriate in a section of the article particularly describing the studies on which the graph is based.·Maunus·ƛ· 13:43, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

No way. This article is ABOUT race and intelligence, and the graphic lets the reader see what "the big deal" is at a glance. Otherwise the reader has to read quite a lot to even know the magnitude of the differences, and that asians score higher than whites. TechnoFaye Kane 03:46, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm slightly peripheral to this discussion, but I would nevertheless be concerned that having such a prominent diagram showing race vs IQ is conflating the ideas of IQ and intelligence, which are different things. There are many issues with IQ, including one clearly shown in the diagram - the assumption that IQ is normally distributed (it's actually a ratio, as I'm sure you know). In fact the figures are fixed to make it normally distributed - but then the results for the different distributions for different races are affected in different ways by these adjustments, so they can't all be normally distributed at the same time. Hence the differences between the normal distributions is an inaccurate representation of the differences between the actual distributions. In summary the diagram is suspect for two reasons:

• Intelligence is not the same as IQ, so the lede should not give undue weight to IQ by giving it such a prominent image

Bull shit. IQ is a legtimate proxy for intelligence and is used that way in research. citation on req. Stop trying to water down this article! The race/intelligence gap exists. If you don't like it, tough titties. Deal with it. TechnoFaye Kane 03:46, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

• The normal distribution in IQ shown only applies after normalising the results - but you can't in general do this for more than one distribution at a time. As each race has a different distribution, they can't all be normalised at once. The diagram must show an idealised (and hence subjective) picture of what would have happened if the IQs all were exactly normally distributed with different means but identical standard deviations. This does not show an experimental result, but a "what if" speculation - again not something which should be given undue weight. Stephen B Streater (talk) 21:42, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
• I've just read Soap's comment - this mirrors my second concern (vice versa in fact!) that the graphs look suspect. Stephen B Streater (talk) 21:45, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

These are serious concerns. What is the source for the graphs? They come from Reynolds, Chastain, Kaufman, & McLean, 1987, p. 330, but did thse authors normalize the curves? That we provide it, i.e. that it is not copyrighted, suggests to me that a Wikipedian manipulated the data. The Wikipedian who uploaded the image is no longer active, butif he did it, I'd say it violates SYNTH; Slrubenstein | Talk

The second sentence is poorly worded: "Debates in popular science and academic research over the possible connection of race and intelligence, originally as a comparison of African Americans and Caucasians in the United States, but later extended to other races and regions of the world." --120 Volt monkey (talk) 12:44, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

New criticisms of Lynn in "test scores" section

Mustihussain has just added the following information to the "test scores" section:

However, Lynn's findings are highly contested, and it is proven that Lynn has falsified and manipulated data . It is recommended to view Lynn's findings with "some suspicion" . Lynn himself discredits his own work by equating the 'mental age' of adult Bushmen with European 8 year olds as he did in "Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis".

I have two problems with this addition. One is that I think this is the wrong section for us to be getting into criticisms of Lynn: if other editors don't think we can cite test scores to him without mentioning these criticisms, it's probably better for us to cite the test score data to someone else. My other problem is that I don't think it's neutrally worded for us to say "it is proven that Lynn has falsified and manipulated data" and "Lynn himself discredits his own work".

I think the problem with adding this information in this section are fairly obvious, but I guess we can discuss it anyway, just in case there's anyone other than Mustihussain and Mathsci who disagrees. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:02, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes - the edits needed at least tidying up. If we have some non-suspect test scores, we should use those, perhaps in addition. I prefer to be briefer in the criticisms as the point of this section is not to personalise the debate by criticising someone in detail. If Lynn's figures are important, we could just add a few words to say: Lynn's methods has been criticised with the references, or some such. We can't criticise someone every time their name is mentioned, and the critiques must be easy to locate, not buried at some random point in the article. Stephen B Streater (talk) 00:38, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Also, if the criticism is that he's not a very nice man, that shouldn't be mentioned in this section. If the criticism is that he has used dodgy methods, so the figures are suspect, that should be mentioned in some brief way. Stephen B Streater (talk) 00:40, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

OK - The new wording seems much more "reporting what is said" than before. However it seems to believe the reviewer uncritically compared with the author, which I will question when I've had some sleep. Also, the section gives three references supporting the claim that others have obtained similar results, so as a reader I am wondering why there is so much effort on criticising Lynn here. Perhaps the repeatable results should be separated slightly from the suspect results/criticism of Lynn which also interestingly seems to point to the unspoken flaw in the whole IQ-as-a-proxy-for intelligence issue - namely IQ tests are not subtle enough to pick up all aspects of intelligence, and are subject to wide errors when they use cultural specific questions or have a biased originator. Stephen B Streater (talk) 00:50, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

And a final note before I go to bed - we don't have to get everything right in a single edit. Some combination of the ideas suggested (with new ideas we haven't thought of yet) will probably work well. Stephen B Streater (talk) 00:54, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I’m concerned by the fact that the two users who keep putting this information back in the article, Mathsci and Mustihussain, have not made any effort to participate in this discussion or justify their edits here. We’ve been having a similar problem with Mathsci on this article, where he’s made three reverts of edits from two different users within the space of around 40 minutes. If you look at the discussion page for that article, you’ll see that Mathsci’s efforts to justify his preferred version of the article is based only on repeating the same argument again and again, while not acknowledging any of what’s been said in response, or the fact that six users have expressed disagreement with his preferred version and he’s the only user who supports it. I think we need to come up with a overall principle about how to handle it when someone keeps reverting an article while refusing to cooperate with other users’ effort to discuss these edits, because this is happening fairly often now. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:03, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

There are many ways to do this, most of which don't work very effectively, ending up with burnout or bans. One advantage of exploring a wide range of articles is that you come across situations like this where you don't have a POV yourself, and you can see what types of solution work and what don't - and how the various participants are perceived by the wider community. This article is a microcosm of many controversial articles. Everyone on WP should also read WP:MPOV of course, though it's remarkable how few people it applies to, particularly on controversial articles! Stephen B Streater (talk) 01:19, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Leaving aside the quality of these edits, isn't it obvious to all concerned that this is not the best way to work for the article? Instead, folks should do what MathSci did with regard to the History section and I am trying to do with the Assumptions: Take the whole section. Redraft it from start to finish, either on this talk page or at your user page. See comments from all concerned. Incorporate comments. Iterate. And then install the new section. Most reasonable editors will then, after that process, give great deference to the new section. I am the first to admit that the Test Scores section that we came out from Mediation was flawed. But this process is not making it better . . . David.Kane (talk) 01:26, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Can you provide the specific cite in the Hunt article where it's "proved" that Lynn faked data? Without pretty strong evidence, that seems like defamation. I just reviewed an article of Lynn's on National IQs (it's in press now). The nation IQ numbers have been replicated. They are not fake. Cooking the data is the worst sin in science. Do you really think he could get away with something like this, given how many people have him under his lens? Recent changes to this article have really sucked, if the goal is to present a neutral report on the current debate and data. I'm disappointed. -Bpesta22 (talk) 04:20, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Realize that we could totally ignore anything Lynn's written for this article and we'd be left with exactly the same issue (100 years of race differences on IQ tests; albeit less data on the african IQ). It seems like many are setting up a straw man where if we focus on Lynn, we can debunk the whole field. Why such intense focus on him, when even if you successfully discredit him, you're still left with all the data on this topic that are not his?

That seems pov pushing. Why not just take these edits to the Lynn article on Wiki so we can focus here on the data that need to be explained? -Bpesta22 (talk) 04:30, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

If you have a problem with the edits that added this new material, you’re welcome to revert them. (In case you haven’t noticed this yet, the easiest way to revert an edit is by clicking the “undo” button next to the edit in the article’s edit history.) The only reason I haven’t reverted this edit myself is because I’ve already removed this material twice, and I’d rather not get accused of edit warring.

Generally, it’s acceptable to revert edits that are clearly opposed by consensus, or that nobody is willing or able to justify on the article’s talk page. (The second criterion definitely seems to apply here.) However, it’s not a good idea to revert the same article too often, since that’s considered edit warring and it’s possible to get in trouble for that. There’s also rule (3RR) against reverting the same article more than three times in one day, but one or two reverts generally isn’t a problem. --Captain Occam (talk) 05:03, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

It looks like we’ve still got users putting these criticisms back in the article, while refusing to participate in the discussion about why this is the wrong part of the article for them. I know this request is likely to go ignored, but: could other editors please comply with WP:BRD? When you revert something, you’re supposed to discuss it with the other editors who disagree with you; you’re not supposed to just keep reverting it while ignoring their attempts at discussion about it. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:03, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

The African IQ section would be the perfect place to put in criticisms of Lynn. Please be prepared to prove he faked his data, if you insist on keeping that sentence in. Without evidence, I see that as potentially defamation. -Bpesta22 (talk) 03:18, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

2nd Version of new Assumptions section

Here it is. Thanks for many helpful comments from editors of all persuasions, both here and on my talk page. I have tried to incorporate everything, while keeping the overall size of the section proportional to the rest of the article.

Debate assumptions and methodology

Race and intelligence research involves debate over the links, if any, between race and intelligence. This research is grounded in two controversial assumptions:

• Race is partially genetically based.
• Intelligence is quantitatively measurable.

Both assumptions are disputed.

There are several conflicting positions. Some scientists argue that the history of eugenics makes this field of research difficult to reconcile with current ethical standards for science. Other scientists insist that, independent of ethical concerns, research into race and intelligence makes little sense because intelligence is poorly measured and because race is a social construction. According to this view, intelligence is ill-defined and multi-dimensional, or has definitions that vary between cultures. This would make contrasting the intelligence of groups of people, especially groups that came from different cultures, dependent mainly on which culture’s definition of intelligence is being used. Moreover, this view asserts that even if intelligence were as simple to measure as height, racial differences in intelligence would still be meaningless since race exists only as a social construct, with no basis in biology.

Unsurprisingly, almost all scientists actively engaged in research in race and intelligence disagree with these two positions. These researchers fall into two groups: hereditarians and environmentalists. Both argue that, although race and intelligence are fuzzy concepts, they can be operationalized enough to draw conclusions about the connections, if any, between the two. In this research, race is almost always measured via self-identification. Subjects are presented with a set of racial options and allowed to place themselves in one (or more) category, or are placed by an interviewer. The set of categories allowed and the words used to describe them varies from study to study and from country to country. Intelligence is generally measured with some form of IQ test.

Hereditarians argue that genetics explain a significant portion (approximately 50%) of the differences in measured intelligence among human races. Leading scholars of this view include Arthur Jensen, Philippe Rushton, Richard Herrnstein, Linda Gottfredson, Charles Murray and Richard Lynn.

Environmentalists argue that the hereditarians are wrong. Genetic differences are not an important cause of differences in measured intelligence among human races. Leading scholars of this view include Richard Lewontin, Stephen J. Gould, James Flynn, Richard Nisbett and Stephen Ceci.

Other scientists, although accepting the basic assumptions of the debate, believe that there is currently not enough evidence to determine what part, if any, genetics plays in racial differences.

In theory, the dispute could be resolved with a simple experiment. Select 1,000 fertilized eggs at random from the relevant racial groups, say White, Black and East Asian. Place all 1,000 in identical environments, both pre- and post-natal. This would involved creating three separate societies which would be perfectly equal and as similar as possible to contemporary developed countries. Nutrition, family environment, education, popular culture and all other factors which might influence intelligence would need to be identical. For example, the Nobel Prize winners in the White society would all be White, those in the Black society would all be Black and so on.

Then, after 18 years, give the thousand subjects from each racial group an intelligence test. If the group averages are the same, then the hereditarian hypothesis is refuted. Since ethical and practical issues make such an experiment impossible, researchers in race and intelligence need to rely on simpler and less conclusive experiments and data analysis.

There are two primary methods for controlling factors (education, income and so on) which are correlated with IQ test scores and which co-vary with race The first constrains participant selection so that members of all races are equal on the factor in question. For example, if a researcher thinks education is the explanation for the difference, then she could compare the IQs of only similarly-educated members of each group. Showing that the difference is zero for persons matched on education levels would suggest that education is the cause of the difference. Showing that the difference remains for similarly educated people would make it less likely that education differences across race explain differences in average IQ. The second method is similar to the first, but uses statistics (rather than participant selection) to control the factor.

References

Comments welcome! David.Kane (talk) 01:51, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

(1) Can we in-line attribute the thought experiment to Loehlin, Lindzey and Spuhler? (2) Can we point out that there is disagreement among "Hereditarians" and "Environmentalists"? There are at least two subdivisions among Hereditarians -- those that believe that genetics does explain the gap versus those that believe that it could explain the gap. Murray and Herrnstein (1994) claim to be among the latter. Likewise, Flynn disagrees on many things with Gould (Gould's book evades all of Jensen's best arguments for a genetic component in the black-white IQ gap, by positing that they are dependent on the concept of g as a general intelligence factor. Therefore, Gould believes that if he can discredit g, no more need be said. This is manifestly false. Jensen's arguments would bite no matter whether blacks suffered from a score deficit on one or 10 or 100 factors. I attribute no intent or motive to Gould, it is just that you cannot rebut arguments if you do not acknowledge and address them. (Flynn 1999, 373)). Better yet perhaps we could disconnect the labels from the people but discuss them at the same time to get a sense of the range of views. --DJ (talk) 02:59, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

(1) Not really. (And perhaps my footnote is misleading.) Loehlin, Lindzey and Spuhler do not describe this particular thought experiment. They describe and discuss other such theoretical situations, mainly raising children in completely different environments, quoting authors from early in the 20th century. (2) If helpful, I am ready to delete the specific people and just list the descriptions. I like to think that it will be obvious that any group of scientists, even if they agree enough to be grouped under a single name like environmentalists, will disagree about many things. Flynn and Gould may despise each other, but the both agree that genetics plays no part in racial IQ differences. (3) If you would like to suggest a specific sentence to illustrate this point, I would be happy to add it. Indeed, feel free to edit the text directly yourself. I trust your judgment! David.Kane (talk) 04:32, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with DJ’s suggestion about pointing out the disagreements between members of each camp. I also have a problem with the wording of this part:

“According to this view, intelligence is ill-defined and multi-dimensional. One person can be smarter than another in one subject and dumber in another. Intelligence is culture-specific. And, since intelligence comparisons between individuals are so problematic, contrasting the intelligence of groups of people, especially if they come from different cultures, is impossible. Moreover, even if intelligence were as simple to measure as height, the non-biological character of race, and its different meanings and definitions around the world, make racial differences in intelligence nonsensical.”

I think this needs to be worded in such a way that makes it clear we’re not asserting this as fact, but just presenting it as one of several viewpoints. I would suggest something like this:

“According to this view, intelligence is ill-defined and multi-dimensional, or has definitions that vary between cultures. This would make contrasting the intelligence of groups of people, especially groups that came from different cultures, dependent only on which culture’s definition of intelligence is being used. Moreover, this view asserts that even if intelligence were as simple to measure as height, racial differences in intelligence would still be meaningless if race existed only as a social construct with no basis in biology.”

I may eventually have other suggestions also, but that’s the main one I can think of at the moment. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:45, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

David, I hope you haven’t decided to stop participating here just because of the AN/I thread. Aren’t you going to continue working on making this revision? --Captain Occam (talk) 22:13, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Still here! Just incorporated your suggestions, in place. Changed a couple of words and may change a couple more, but only to make them read better. If you object, I can change back. I am also still interested in getting feedback from others. Otherwise, I plan to install on Wednesday, about a week after the process started. [11]. Big thanks to everyone who made comments, especially Maunus, Stephen B Streater, Bpesta22 and Occam. David.Kane (talk) 23:01, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

As I have previously mentioned, I don't support the inclusion of this material, though I thought the inclusion of the critique of IQ was an improvement. I don't think it is a good idea for David Kane to be writing the whole article. I think David has done enough already and I think he should step back and give an opportunity for other editors to shape the article. This is important for neutrality and balance. Wapondaponda (talk) 23:16, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree! Please, will someone else volunteer to tackle the next section that we need to fix? Of course, several sections need fixing, but I have/had promised Slrubenstein that I would fix the Adoption studies section next. Yet, I agree that it would be much better if someone else did that, ideally following the high standards set by MathSci when he redid the History section. Any volunteers? David.Kane (talk) 23:49, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

On the issue of this section, can you give some more detail? What do you like about the current section that we should retain? What sentences would you like to see struck from this version? As you can see, I am eager for feedback. But just saying "I don't support" doesn't give me any specific guidance about how we might win your support. David.Kane (talk) 23:49, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

There are a few changes I’ve been intending to make sometime soon, but the “adoption studies” section isn’t what I consider the highest priority at this point, since at least it presents the data. There are two sections I’d like to work on next. One of them is the “African IQ” section, which mentions that the IQ of Sub-Saharan African countries is especially controversial, but explains nothing about what the controversy about them actually is. And the other is the section about racial admixture studies, which is a line of data that we agreed during the mediation case ought to be included, but the section about it seems to have disappeared entirely.

While I’m at it, I’m also intending to add back some of the sections about environmental influences on IQ that were covered by the article before mediation. Muntuwandi has complained that it’s unbalanced for the article to not cover these topics, and nobody else appears to have disagreed with him about this. If nobody does, that means his complaint is most likely a reasonable one that ought to be taken into consideration.

I’d also like us to finish discussing the “significance” section, but that can wait until after some of the other changes we’ve been discussing. Does anybody have a problem with me implementing the changes I’ve suggested here? --Captain Occam (talk) 01:15, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

That all seems like good stuff. But I hope that you will do as I did and post your new section here (or at your talk page) and allow for comments. I think that this --- redoing entire sections at once rather than adding/deleting specific sentences --- makes for much more collaborative editing. I think that this is especially true of the environmental issues. (And I certainly agree with Muntuwandi that we need more of that.) But things are likely to be more productive if you spec out here in detail a draft. If you are looking for votes on where to begin, I would start with the African IQ section. It is, clearly, one of the weakest. Of course, those who do the work get to pick what they will work on . . . David.Kane (talk) 01:24, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I don’t object to you using the method of editing you’re using here, but I really prefer something that’s more efficient than this. The way I see it, your preferred method of editing makes collaboration a lot more difficult, because that way every other revision that anyone else suggests has to be filtered through the person making the proposal. As long as I can be confident that other users will have little enough problem with what I’m intending to do that they won’t do a wholesale revert of my edits (which why I’m proposing them here before I make them), I would much rather let other users edit the material I’ve added in the article itself, and discuss individual parts of it here if there’s a disagreement over them. Since what I’m hoping to change will involve several different sections, I also couldn’t quote my proposed changes here as easily here as you did.

There isn’t a right or wrong way of doing this, in my opinion. Everybody just has their own preferred style of editing. --Captain Occam (talk) 03:21, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

OK. I am not king of Wikipedia nor of this article so, obviously, other editors are not bound by my preferences. We will see what happens! David.Kane (talk) 12:09, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I have added this in. Thanks to all for feedback! I like to think that almost everyone's concerns were addressed and that, as a result, the new section is an improvement on the old. My main failure has been to convince Muntuwandi. If he has time to provide a specific list of things that he preferred in the old version to what we have now, I would be eager to incorporate his views. David.Kane (talk) 23:53, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

g loading section

I think the assertion that g is controversial is wrong. The whole section focuses on possible problems with the method of correlated vectors and whether the technique can inform us about race differences. None of the criticisms in that long quote are directed at g. In fact, the critics state that is a fact that g exists.

The section should perhaps be renamed to Spearman's hypothesis. -Bpesta22 (talk) 03:20, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Reasonable points. Why not work up a new draft for that section, perhaps with a better title. Just copy and paste it here or on your talk page and go at it. David.Kane (talk) 02:58, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I made the changes to the actual article-- hope that's ok. I think the prior version was technically incorrect, but now is fixed. -Bpesta22 (talk) 03:20, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Captain Occam, Comply with NPOV

NPOV is non-negotiable. Properly sourced views must be included in this article. Your continued deletion of properly sourced material comes close to POV-pushing.

In your edit summary you suggest that you think that the material belongs in another section. I do not. But IF you believe this, as you claim, then what you would really do is not delete it, but move it to the section in which you think it is most appropriate. I have no idea what section you are imagining. So I have put it in the section I think most appropriate. But if you see a better section, put it there. Actually, I will create a new subsection as a compromise. This should satisfy both of us. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:38, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't think Occam is POV pushing. Bpesta22 seems to agree with him. So, we have two editors, at least, who find this material problematic. The issue is whether or not this material is true (I have not checked the citations directly) and whether or not it is WP:UNDUE. I certainly think it would be WP:UNDUE if it were added to the Test scores section since there is no discussion there of the quality of any other researcher's work. (I think that the best answer would be to find some other source besides Lynn, but I am not sure that this is possible.) David.Kane (talk) 12:13, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

And we have at least three editors who find the data problematic. So what? NPOV does not say we include the views editors agree on. We include properly sourced views. The views I have added are certainly significant and from reliable sources. And Captain Occam's objection seemed only to be to how they were placed in the article. If the new section I created is not satisfactory, they should come up with a better idea. But deleting sourced views is a violation of policy. IQ and the Wealth of nations is widely considered pseudoscience - I have concerns even about using it in the article. But if we use it, the widespread valid concerns of scientists ought to be registered. We have already agreed that mackintosh is an acceptable source. And BPesta said Intelligence is the leading journal, so a book review from that journal ought to be acceptable as a view about the book - to reject the review from the very journal touted as the authority smacks of hypocracy, and we cannot allow our article to appear hypocritical. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:36, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Could someone please provide a pointer to what the disagreement is about? --DJ (talk) 13:54, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

DJ: You ask the impossible! ;-) I think that this dispute is about what amount of discussion, if any, should accompany usage of statistics from Richard Lynn's work and where that discussion should be placed. One "side" thinks that the Test scores section should be kept relatively free of such discussions. The other "side" think that it is unreasonable to present Lynn's results without such context. My view, heavily influenced by MathSci, is that we should find some secondary source which discusses test scores around the world and rework the entire section using that source, or multiple secondary sources. Then, to the extent that folks wanted much more detail (including Lynn's work and criticisms of it), that would mean that we needed a daughter article, just as MathSci created for History. Hope that is helpful! David.Kane (talk) 14:00, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, my view is that, without much work, we could put a few words (eg one such as controversial with an inline reference) indicating that this is contentious at this point, and put all the details elsewhere in the article, with the same reference(s) and more detail. Where there is doubt, NPOV requires we give enough information for the reader to be able to assess the reliability of sources. This solution wouldn't need additional sources or a separate article. Stephen B Streater (talk) 14:09, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

(I tend to agree with Stephen B Streater)

Here is a quote from Hunt & Carlson (2007) on their take on the issue:

Examples of Questionable Construct Validity.

Lynn and Vanhanen (2002) used IQ test scores to predict indices of economic productivity across nations. Their data points were pairs—IQ estimate–economic estimate—for each nation. Some of the IQ estimates were based on large standardization samples; others, by ‘‘school children’’ (not otherwise described); and in two cases, a country was represented by tests on emigrants from that country to a second country. The IQ estimate for the country of Equatorial Guinea (the lowest IQ reported) was determined from ‘‘data for 48 10–14 year olds . . . collected on the WISC-R (Fernandez-Ballesteros, Juan-Espinosa, Colom, and Calero[1997])’’ (Lynn and Vanhanen, 2002, p. 203). The Fernandez-Ballesteros et al. article states clearly that the participants in the study were (a) in a school for children with developmental dis-abilities and (b) Spanish children in Madrid! The construct validity of such data points is clearly questionable.[footnote here:] A reader of an earlier version of this manuscript argued that such errors do not matter, because all they would do is reduce the correlation between the IQ scores and the economic indicators. Therefore, since Lynn and Vanhanen (2002) report a positive correlation, the true correlation must be even higher than their reported correlation. This argument is incorrect on technical grounds. It is also irrelevant to our concern. Technically, increasing errors in variables will reduce correlations if the errors are randomly distributed, with an expectation of zero, and uncorrelated with the true values of the variables in question. If these assumptions are violated—for example, by systematic underestimation of IQs in impoverished countries—the correlation between variables can be increased.

... These two examples raise a vexing problem. Empirically, the relationships reported between IQ scores and the variables of interest may very well be correct. Lynn and Vanhanen (2002) argued that there is a substantial correlation between population indices of cognitive competence and national wealth. On the basis of other studies (Hunt & Wittmann, in press; Kanazawa,2006; Lynn & Mikk, 2007; McDaniel, 2006), we believe that this is likely to be the case. For that matter, because some of the lowest IQ scores in the world are in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, Templer and Arikawa may be correct in their assertion that there is a correlation between IQ score and skin color. The problem is that presenting an argument based on poor-quality data, especially on such an emotional issue as racial differences, biases general acceptance of stronger findings supporting the argument. Gottfredson (1998, 2005) has correctly pointed out that findings of racial influences on intelligence are deeply disturbing to many social scientists who are then motivated to attack reports of differences. The use of measures that clearly violate construct validity, or that are obtained in a methodologically inappropriate way, provides the attackers with ammunition. The problem is not that there will be an effect on the beliefs of specialists in the field. The problem is that other psychologists, including textbook writers, may propagate the belief that all studies on a topic are flawed because certain highly publicized ones were.

They fashion their criticism around the questionable construct validity of (some) of the IQ numbers. I think that's an excellent approach to explaining the issue and would help us here. --DJ (talk) 14:20, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

This looks like a good source to draw from. Thank you for bringing that to our attention. I'm not sure about the copyright issues about copying such a large section though! Stephen B Streater (talk) 14:27, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I too think this is a very useful source and thank DJ for bringing it to our attention. I want to point out that I think there is a second problem that was fudged during the mediation: is this a US debate or an international debate? It started in the US and I would hazard a guess that the best (in terms of representative sample/sampling strategies, reliability of test, etc.) data is from the US. I think it is a debate of interest to many people in the US. I have no evidence that it is a debate of importance in Ecuador or Bolivia or Equatorian Guinea or Sierra Leone. Yet, this being English wikipedia, some editors are highly sensitive to the charge of US-centric articles. But the only really notable study on race and IQ outside of the US is this book IQ and the Wealth of Nations, which a great number of scientists think is based on very crappy methods, relying on data that is not comparable or representative. So we have this dilemma: include this book and introduce highly questionable data in order to make the article more international, or exclude the book and run the risk of appearing US-centric.

(ec)Apart from that little mess hidden under the rug, is a separate question: where do we put discussions concerning the quality of the data? During mediation I agreed to a "data driven" article, which I understood to mean that the test score data and basic correlations with SIRE would be presented up top, and used to rasie a set of questions researchers are debating; subsequent sections would cover the research done in order to answer those questions. The fact remains however that even data that some of us consider highly reliable has been questioned by some. We need someplace to review debates over the qualtity of the data. I think a subsection up top is the most convenient place, but if people have other ideas, well, let's have a discussion. But we cannot exclude these views from the article. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:45, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Slrubenstein, if you look at my comments in the “assumptions” section, you’ll see that my intention is to expand the “African IQ” section in order to explain in more detail what the controversy over these scores is. Since the largest portion of the criticism of Lynn’s test score data is directed at his interpretation of scores from Sub-Saharan Africa, I think that’s the appropriate place to cover this kind of criticism.

The only reason I haven’t made these changes already is because I’m still waiting for other people to comment on my proposal about them. In the past, I’ve had a few users complain about me rushing ahead with changes before I’ve allowed adequate time for discussion about them. But if you’re impatient about me creating the section where these scores will be criticized, I can do it sometime within the next day.

If you have a serious problem with us citing the test score data to Lynn, we can also find a source for this that’s a little less controversial, such as Jensen & Rushton 2005. (Not that this paper hasn’t been criticized also, but most of the criticism has been directed at Jensen and Rushton’s hereditarian conclusions, rather than at their test score data itself.) Do you consider that a satisfactory solution? --Captain Occam (talk) 14:37, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

First, I do not follow your logic. You point out that "In the past, I’ve had a few users complain about me rushing ahead with changes before I’ve allowed adequate time for discussion about them" but we are talking about material that several other editors keep adding which you keep taking out. I find this very confusing. You say ou are concerned that others do not agree with what you add, but it is you who keeps removing material added by others. Isn't it obvious that others are not objecting to adding this material?

second, I think we need to distinguish between two different kinds of criticisms. There are criticisms over the interpretation of the datas. And there are criticisms of the quality of the data. I think the former belongs in any of the various sections in the latter parts of the article, where specific interpretations are provided. But basic criticisms of the quality of the data itself should be a subsection that follows wherever we introduce a summary of the data. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:49, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

The only reason I kept removing this data was because nobody was willing to try and justify its inclusion. I posted a thread where I asked anyone who thought this data was necessary to explain why they felt this way, and there were several responses from other people who also thought this data didn’t belong there, but all of the people who thought this data was necessary just ignored the thread, and kept reverting the article while refusing to cooperate with our efforts to discuss these edits. Generally, when a user refuses to justify an edit they’re making on the article’s talk page, it’s going to get reverted. This has nothing to do with whether the edit is appropriate or not; it’s just how WP:BRD works. Now that you’re finally justifying this edit here, though, I won’t revert it again until we’ve come up with a more satisfactory solution.

If you don’t think we can include data from Lynn’s book without mentioning the criticisms of this data in the same section, would it be acceptable to cite the data in the “test scores” section to Jensen and Rushton instead? The criticism of their paper is primarily directed at their interpretations of the data, rather than at the quality of the data itself. Since you’ve said that the former types of criticism can go later on in the article, rather than in the “test scores” section, I’m hoping this means we can include data from Jensen and Rushton in the “test scores” section without needing an additional paragraph of criticism in this section. Do you agree to that? --Captain Occam (talk) 15:12, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. You raise some valid questions. Rather than answer I would like to see what others think. Since mediation some people seem to have stopped participating but I think it would be good to get a sample of views from diverse positions. People might agree with what you propose or come up with better ideas. Can we give it two or three days? Slrubenstein | Talk 16:03, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I have peer reviewed several papers on national (and US state) IQ over the last year or so. Most of these are now in press. The most recent one cleans up the estimates and further establishes predictive validity. Right now, there is strong evidence that both national and state IQs are valid measures. One of the more recent ones is Reeve, 2009, in intelligence. -Bpesta22 (talk) 16:22, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I have made a proposal above - the single word "controversial" + one or two inline cite next to this word indicating a potential issue, with more detail elsewhere. This avoids clutter here, but leaves the reader with enough doubt to pursue it further if they think the unreliability is an issue (brevity is good because they may be interested in another area of the subject entirely). I have no strong preference for any particular cite at this point, though adding two cites would indicated more doubts than a single one. I don't think more text here helps in this case - a single cited word will attract attention. The detail should be included in the article though, as it is significant to the topic given the sparks it caused in the press. Stephen B Streater (talk) 16:48, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Streater: Excellent proposal! Go for it. This seems a much better place for the article short term. But I would certainly be willing to revisit the topic, especially in the context of a thorough re-write of the Test scores section. David.Kane (talk) 17:00, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I have raised this issue previously here. Lynn's work is not considered mainstream and has been criticized heavily. The only way we should use this data is if it comes along with its criticisms. Considering Lynn's work as mainstream is giving WP:UNDUE weight to a controversial claim. It is probably only some Europe countries, the US and a few other "western" nations that have historical records of IQ tests such that their data can be considered reliable. AFAIK, there is no systematic, detailed and mainstream study of global national IQs. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:35, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Dr. Pesta, I was definitely planning to discuss predictive validity when I cover sub-Saharan African IQ scores. I was intending to cite this paper about predictive validity within sub-Saharan countries, and this paper about predictive validity between countries. I’m not as familiar with the research about topic this as you are, though. If there are any other papers that you think should be cited when we discuss predictive validity of IQ in sub-Saharan Africa, can you please provide links and/or citations for them? --Captain Occam (talk) 17:34, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Please just refer to me as bpesta or bryan.

Two points here re Lynn:

1. I agree his data on the African IQ are controversial. There would be the perfect place to criticize him, but I would not recommend claiming he faked data.

2. Someone here brought up aggregate level data (state and national IQs). This is an emerging area of research that many people are taking an interest in. The national and state IQ data show very strong correlations with a host of other outcome variables (crime, education, religiosity, income and health in my paper on the topic). No one's really looking at race with these data, so although it's ok to criticize Lynn for the race stuff, his national IQ estimates are strongly predictive-Bpesta22 (talk) 18:33, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I am curious, does it work the other way i.e. national data on crime, health, education and income predict the national IQ? In any event, I think we have to agree on two issues: first, a subsection on questions about the data belongs when the data is first introduced. If the data on African IQs is not introduced until later, I would agree that the questions section could go later - well, whenever it is first introduced. The second is NPOV. Some editors here may have their own critique, or may feel a certain published critique is very strong - or very weak. It doesn't matter. Our own views just have to be bracketed in making these decisions. Rather, we need to strive to include all significant views in reliable sources, significant and reliable as defined by our NPOV policy. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:04, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

The other point that I was thinking ought to be made is that within countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the predictive validity of IQ is the same regardless of race. The country in which this has been most studied seems to be South Africa, possibly because it’s the only country in Sub-Saharan Africa that has a significant amount of test data for both blacks and whites. A source that makes this point more specifically is Human Abilities in Cultural Context by Irvine and Berry. Although the authors of this book think that the low average IQ among blacks in these countries is primarily the result of environmental and cultural factors, they also point out that blacks and whites in South Africa with the same IQ also tend to have the same level of job performance and educational achievement.

The first paper I linked to makes this point also, but not as specifically with regard to race as the Irvine and Berry book does. This book is from 1988, though, so it would be nice if there were some more recent sources we could use about this. Are you aware of any more recent sources that have examined the predictive validity of IQ between individuals, rather than between countries, in Sub-Saharan Africa? --Captain Occam (talk) 19:01, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I think we need to confront the underlying question: does the African IQ data belong up top, where the basic data on mean IQs for different races goes, or as a subsection later on? I think we have to consider the rationale carefully. To put the data up top is to say that this article is about IQ and race difference all over the world. To put it into a section on African IQ down with Flynn effect and other sub-topics is to day that this is an issue largely in the US, and in the course of explaining the gap in the US, some researchers have brought in data from Africa. Which of the two is it? Slrubenstein | Talk 19:10, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Here’s what I have in mind: In the “test score” section, we present the data from Jensen and Rushton first, which only involves blacks, whites and Asians and is based on testing in the U.S. and Europe. Since the dispute over this data is over how to interpret it, rather than over the validity of the data itself, I don’t think it needs to be qualified. Then after that but in the same section, we include the data that Lynn has compiled from other parts of the world, and say that this data is generally considered less reliable and is much more disputed, with a link to the “African IQ” section which will contain the more detailed criticisms of Lynn. This last idea is based on Stephen B Streater’s suggestion. How does this structure sound to you? --Captain Occam (talk) 19:57, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Slrubenstein, if you’re going to be edit warring with Mikemikev over this section, that gives me the impression I ought to make the changes I’ve proposed sooner rather than later. I’m hoping my proposed revision will be satisfactory to both of you, but I won’t be able to make it if the article gets locked again because of edit warring. If neither of you are able to put up with one another’s revisions to this section for more than a few hours at a time, are you sure you want me to wait a few days before implementing my suggested compromise? --Captain Occam (talk) 20:10, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Given the edit warring, I would recommend that you make your changes sooner rather than later. They can only help matters! David.Kane (talk) 20:40, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I do not see any edit warring. Mikemikev delted material I added, commenting that this was not the place to put conlcusions and that it was sloppy - in the edit summary. He was right: I fixed the portion that was sloppily formatted and restored it. He deleted a clause with a conclusion, and I kept that deletion. In short, my last edit took on board my best understanding of his complaints in the edit summary. I di dnot simply revert him.

But I will say this: when I first posted material I created this section and explained myself. Mikemikev deleted properly sourced content, without discussing it here. You accuse me of edit warring, but not Mikemikev? I stand by what I wrote before: Captain Occam made some interesting points. We should discuss them. Now, just because mikemikev went ahead and made deletions, without even discussing them or Captain Occam's proposals, does not change a thing. If he deletes again, without discussion, I do not mind fixing it. But we should still discuss Captain Occam's proposals over the next two or three days and not use this as an excuse to rush into anything unilaterally. That is not how we work things at Wikipedia. Slrubenstein | Talk 21:07, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I think the key here is 2-3 days. Obviously, my proposal was the best at the time I made it, (thanks for your support up there), but there is a good chance that when people have slept on it and brought in other factors and wider issues, a more complete solution will emerge. This is why I haven't added it in yet. Also, this time, I don't need the glory of adding it in myself, whatever the agreement is, as long as it is a good edit. Stephen B Streater (talk) 21:13, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Slrubenstein, when I accuse you of edit warring, I’m only looking at number of reverts. You’ve reverted the article three times within the past 24 hours, while Mikemikev has only reverted it once during the same amount of time. A single revert generally isn’t considered edit warring, even if the revert was erroneous. Three reverts of the same material in the same day, on the other hand, often results in a warning that the person is close to violating 3RR.

What are you talking about? On April 20 I "undid" two edits, one by 120 volt monkey and one by you. After that, I made several other edits, none of which were reverts. Maybe you do not know what a revert is? Slrubenstein | Talk 09:36, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I’m OK with waiting another two or three days before I make the changes I’ve suggested. If that’s what I’m going to do, though, I have a request of David.Kane: could you please make your own proposed revision to the “methodology” section? The discussion about your proposal for this section seems to have tapered off now, and once I’ve made the changes I’m proposing here and we start a new series of discussions about them, I think it’s pretty unlikely that we’d be returning to the discussion about your own proposed changes. I don’t want my revisions to cause the work you’ve put into your own proposal about that section to have gone to waste, which I think is likely to happen if I make my proposed revisions before you’ve made yours. --Captain Occam (talk) 21:28, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Slru: It's probably impossible to get at cause with aggregate-level data sets. It's a swamp of inter-correlated variables. So, sure, it's possible IQ is an effect versus a cause in these data.-Bpesta22 (talk) 22:50, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, as long as the relevant sections are written in a way so that this is very clear. Remember, many people who read this article will not have your sophistication about statistics (or the sophistication of readers of peer-reviewed journal articles) ao we need to make sure things are not phrased in such a way that might give a false impression. Thanks. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:40, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

The publications Wicherts 2009, 2010 criticize Lynn's work and are more systematic and recent. They were discussed in the pre-mediation version which I have restored. Wapondaponda (talk) 06:31, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Wicherts on Lynn

I'm in the middle of reading a fairly long critique of Lynn by Wicherts. It can be found at http://dare.uva.nl/document/44999?fid=44999. It had been linked to in the article, but it currently isn't there. I realize it's a large article, but it does a good job of explaining many of the problems with Lynn's recent work. I don't know that it qualifies as a secondary source. If it does, I think it would provide a good basis fur summarizing the criticisms of Lynn. A.Prock (talk) 04:44, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, clearly this needs to be somewhere in the article, or multiple places. I do think it makes sense to separate the raw data and the interpretations of the data; therefore it makes sense to put criticisms of the quality of the data in one place, and criticisms of the interpretations in another place. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:38, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

wicherts & co have recently published 5 studies concluding that "the controversial study on african iq levels conducted by psychologist richard lynn is deeply flawed"[12]. the studies are published in "Personality and Individual Differences":

1. Jelte M. Wicherts, Denny Borsboom and Conor V. Dolan. Why national IQs do not support evolutionary theories of intelligence. Personality and Individual Differences, 2010; 48 (2): 91 DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2009.05.028

2. Jelte M. Wicherts, Denny Borsboom, Conor V. Dolan. Evolution, brain size, and the national IQ of peoples around 3000 years B.C. Personality and Individual Differences, 2010; 48 (2): 104 DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2009.08.020

3. Jelte M. Wicherts, Conor V. Dolan and Han L.J. van der Maas. A systematic literature review of the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans. Intelligence, 2010; 38 (1): 1 DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2009.05.002

4. Jelte M. Wicherts, Conor V. Dolan and Han L.J. van der Maas. The dangers of unsystematic selection methods and the representativeness of 46 samples of African test-takers. Intelligence, 2010; 38 (1): 30 DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2009.11.003

5. Jelte M. Wicherts, Conor V. Dolan, Jerry S. Carlson, and Han L.J. van der Maas. Raven's test performance of sub-Saharan Africans: Average performance, psychometric properties, and the Flynn Effect. Learning and Individual Differences, 2009; DOI: 10.1016/j.lindif.2009.12.001

does someone have access to these papers? dr. pesta? mustihussain 11:59, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

I can get all of them for you, but likely not today (long day of work). I would stipulate that more data are needed on the accuracy of the African IQ, but would worry about giving undue weight to this section, as whatever the true IQ is, we're still left with lots of non-lynn data showing a large SIRE difference worldwide. -Bpesta22 (talk) 13:44, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

marvelous! i will really appreciate your help. my impression is that wicherts has reassessed the sub-saharan data from literature in general.mustihussain 13:59, 22 April 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mustihussain (talk • contribs)

I have the articles-- except the last one; please verify the cite. Where should I send them? -Bpesta22 (talk) 02:48, 24 April 2010 (UTC)\

musti_hussain at hotmail dot com mustihussain 11:15, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

here is another article it would be great the read [13]. it criticizes the use of pisa, timss and other international achievement test scores to estimate average iq. please send the material to musti_hussain at hotmail dot com. i owe you a couple of beers. mustihussain 15:51, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah, here's the link to the last one:e

http://users.fmg.uva.nl/jwicherts/wichertsRavenAfr2010.pdf -Bpesta22 (talk) 02:49, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Consensus

This article has a history of strong opinions from editors, and consensus would be a good start.

But consensus is not My supporters agree. It is My opponents and my supporters agree. Often people aren't completely opposed, and have some common ground. I'm reluctant to tell other people how to edit, as styles vary, but if people waited for several people to agree who they would normally disagree with (or at least for them not object within 24 hours, to allow for time differences), the conflicts on the article pages would be much reduced.

I think the recent ANI thread produced some ideas as to how to improve the mood here, if that is what people want. There is no rush to get the article finished, remember. The problem on this article is one of process, not one-off individual actions. If we can agree a consistent process for all editors, we can move forward without unproductive edit warring. And that must include bringing in a wider range of people before making changes. And a higher bar for article changes.

My personal preference is to include relatively more detail to start with, provided it is well sourced. I don't mind initially where it is, though if people have strong feelings, we can move things around. Once all the important points are down, it will be much easier to see where things should be placed, and to trim out the repetition, which will be more important later on. Stephen B Streater (talk) 13:30, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Questions for Bpesta22

I mentioned earlier that I’ll be making a few revisions to the article soon, and Slrubenstein suggested that I wait a few days first so other users will have a chance to comment on the changes I suggested, so I’ll be doing that. Before I make any of these changes, though, there are also a couple of things I’d like it if Bpesta could clarify, in order to make sure the material I add is sourced properly.

1: You said yesterday that there’s a significant body of data showing a correlation between national or state IQs and several social and economic factors. Could you please provide full citations for what you consider the most important papers demonstrating this? I know of a few papers that talk about this, but definitely not as many as you do, and probably not the most up-to-date of them either.

2: You also mentioned a while ago that most psychologists who study race and intelligence no longer seriously consider stereotype threat as a likely cause of the IQ gap. If I’m going to add the information about stereotype threat back into the article (which is what I’m intending to do), I think it’s important to mention what you said about this if it’s indeed the case. Could you please provide some citations for that also?

3: Do you know of any studies that specifically examined how much of a difference nutrition made in contributing to the IQ gap, such as by adjusting for nutritional conditions and seeing how much the gap narrowed as a result? I’ll want to add data to the article about nutrition also, but all of the sources about nutrition that the article used before the mediation were just about how nutrition affects IQ in general, without discussing differences between races.

It’ll probably be at least another day before I start revising the article, so it isn’t urgent that you answer these questions ASAP, but I’d appreciate if you could do it sometime today. And incidentally, if anyone other that Bpesta can provide these citations, I’d appreciate it regardless of who it’s from. Thanks in advance. --Captain Occam (talk) 06:17, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, it's been a busy week.

1. Sorry if these links are ghastly:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W4M-4Y3K157-1&_user=10&_coverDate=04%2F30%2F2010&_rdoc=9&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_srch=doc-info(%23toc%236546%232010%23999619997%231751125%23FLA%23display%23Volume)&_cdi=6546&_sort=d&_docanchor=&_ct=11&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=c8e464fd8096daa2dd9debd00cedba66

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W4M-4XC974W-1&_user=10&_coverDate=02%2F28%2F2010&_rdoc=17&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_srch=doc-info(%23toc%236546%232010%23999619998%231577821%23FLA%23display%23Volume)&_cdi=6546&_sort=d&_docanchor=&_ct=22&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=ff0b868361b36e425e07127c0f3859b1

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W4M-4WNWW6F-1&_user=10&_coverDate=10%2F31%2F2009&_rdoc=8&_fmt=high&_orig=browse&_srch=doc-info(%23toc%236546%232009%23999629994%231432103%23FLA%23display%23Volume)&_cdi=6546&_sort=d&_docanchor=&_ct=10&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=4b10563d6e995633c64ee2ae7b425515

2. I don't think I ever claimed all researchers think ST is bunk. Many are very fond of it, and from what I heard, ST is featured in nearly all intro to psych texts. I personally believe it's bunk and hope to start data collection soon on an ST project. I would bet (have no evidence) that a majority of IQ researchers do not see it as all that compelling. Here's a study showing publication bias (journals that do and do not replicate the effect):

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2010/01/stereotype-threat-scientific-scandal.html

Wicherts, Jelte M.; Cor de Haan (2009). "Stereotype threat and the cognitive test performance of African Americans". University of Amsterdam. http://www.isironline.org/meeting/pdfs/program2009.pdf. Retrieved 17 January 2010.

3. ALL the environmental explanations do just that-- mention how environmental variables affect IQ but present no data showing that when controlling for them the gap is explained. I think the Flynn effect is a great example of this (e.g., how is it relevant to this debate unless the effect varies systematically with race?). I'm not an expert on nutrition and its link to IQ, so I can't help you on this one. -Bpesta22 (talk) 02:58, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the info.

I don’t think we can cite the Steve Sailer article, because blogs aren’t considered reliable sources by Wikipedia’s standards, and Steve Sailer doesn’t (as far as I know) have any professional training in psychology. But I definitely think that Wicherts’ analysis of publication bias in studies about stereotype threat ought to be mentioned. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:00, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Draft

I have restored the pre-mediation version and moved the recent changes to a draft at Talk:Race and intelligence/Draft. This is because the pre-mediation version was the stable consensus and its core material had remained in place for several years. We should not discard the work that several editors had put in over the years. The recent changes do not have broad consensus yet and there are still numerous problems as evidenced by persistent edit warring and noticeboard threads. There is a lot of useful material in the pre-mediation version, and going forward we should work at finding a compromise and merging the two the versions. The biggest problem with the recent changes is that undue weight is given to the hereditarian position. All the section headings that are included or being proposed are those meant to argue for the hereditarian position. We need a general article on Race and intelligence, and not one that reads like Rushton's Thirty Years of Research..... Wapondaponda (talk) 06:24, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Muntuwandi, have you read any of the recent discussion here? In response to your complaint that the current article doesn’t provide enough discussion about environmental influences on IQ, I’m planning to re-incorporate a lot of the past material discussing this. The only reason I haven’t done this already is because Slrubenstein asked me to wait a few days first, in order to give other users the chance to comment on my proposal.

How many times have you suggested that we reject every change to the article that was made during and after mediation, and how many time has every other user participating in this discussion disagreed with you? One of the first things that was decided on during mediation was that the version of the article resulting from the mediation case would be its default version going forward. If you think there are things that are problematic about the article, the way to deal with them is by bringing them up here, as you have sometimes done, and which will soon result in one of the problems you complained about being fixed. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:46, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Captain Occam, are you edit warring? Muntuwandi was part of the mediation from the start - if he has strong doubts about David Kane's revisions, these should be taken seriously.

You are entirely misrepresenting the mediation. Yes, we discussed specific issues and on those issues we often achieved consensus. BUT we did not then go and make specific changes to the article, based on the specific consensus. Instead, one person, David Kane, did a major rewrite. We never discussed his re-write before it was placed in the article space, so we never had a chance to see whether his rewrite had consensus support. Muntuwandi's proposal does NOT "throw away" any of that work. It simply puts it on its own page where wee can go over it and see if we really have consensus. What is wrong with that? Slrubenstein | Talk 09:45, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, I am hardly independent here, but what is "wrong" here is that, on multiple occasions, I (and others) have asked Muntuwandi to provide a specific list of those aspects of the old version that he liked and/or those versions of the new version that he dislikes. He has never provided such a list. Instead of reverting a huge amount of work, he should provide such a list. Give us specifics! Is that so hard? Once he does, we can have a reasonable conversation. But he has never done so. Instead, he provides extremely vague complaints that are impossible to objectively evaluate. Please quote (just copy and paste here) the "useful material in the pre-mediation version" that you feel was wrongly deleted. David.Kane (talk) 11:17, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

We are where we are. It is quite reasonable for editors to put forward specific objections so we can assess the pros and cons of amending the current version vs restoring a previous one. I don't think an un-reasoned revert is legitimate, even though the mediation didn't have universal support. I'm generally a believer in gradualism as rushed big changes are prone to unforeseen flaws. Stephen B Streater (talk) 11:34, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I think everyone would like to see an improved article, but this doesn't mean that what David Kane wrote is it. As Slrubenstein has pointed out, we could not have agreed to something before we read it. What David Kane wrote has no consensus. Instead it is being forced through by Captain Occam and a few editors who agree with his point of view. As pointed out at ANI, Captain Occam is currently an SPA who spends all his time on this one subject, reverting and edit warring to ensure that his preferred material is in the article. Just because Occam dominates the proceedings here does not mean that all other editors agree.

Now to re-address specific problems, the main problem with what DK wrote is that it was biased towards the hereditarian viewpoint. Occam and Co. were willing to devote whole sections to even some of the weakest hereditarian arguments such as African ancestry and regression, and leave out the most important environmental arguments such as the Flynn effect. No need to reinvent the wheel here, since the pre-mediation version does not have this problem. DK included a number of controversial claims and portrayed them as unqualified facts. For example, Lynn's data was treated as factual despite the numerous criticisms that have been mentioned. DK treated Rushton's brain size data as unqualified facts, when in fact most of the data is not based on the more reliable MRI scans. Rushton states:

One MRI study of race differences in brain size looked at over 100 people in Britain. (It was

published in the 1994 issue of Psychological Medicine). The Black Africans and West Indians in the study averaged smaller brains than did the Whites. Unfortunately, the study did not give much information on the age, sex, and body size of the people tested.

Most of the section headings in DK's version were taken directly from Rushton's 30 years of research and are therefore biased towards the hereditarian position. About 7 out of 10 subsections appear in Rushton's article and Occam and Co. are looking to add the rest of the sections from Rushton's article. No need to reinvent the wheel as the pre-mediation version does not have this problem.

I suggest that we consider using a draft. We have never used one before during this dispute. The advantage is that with drafts there is no pressure to edit war. We also get to see the product before we express our opinion. This contrasts to how DK's version was just thrust upon us, with the implication that if you were part of the mediation, you automatically supported it. Wapondaponda (talk) 11:51, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I consider this progress. I have more specific questions for Muntuwandi.

• "Occam and Co. were willing to devote whole sections to even some of the weakest hereditarian arguments such as African ancestry and regression," M, could you provide sources criticizing these arguments, and draft summaries for us?
• "and leave out the most important environmental arguments such as the Flynn effect." There is a section on the Flynn effect. Are you saying it is anemic, or that it is misplaced (structurally)? If anemic, what more would you have it say? If you feel Flynn wrote things that belong in other sections, can you tell us what? Again, I am asking you to draft specific passages with proper citations that we can plug in.
• "Lynn's data was treated as factual despite the numerous criticisms that have been mentioned." Can you provide reliable sources that raise these objections, and draft a summary we can put into the article?
• "DK treated Rushton's brain size data as unqualified facts, when in fact most of the data is not based on the more reliable MRI scans." Can you provide reliable sources that raise these objections, and draft a summary we can put into the article?
• Can you draft a section based on the more reliable MRI scans, with proper citations to reliable sources, that we can add?

Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 12:13, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

A couple of clarifications:

• "Most of the section headings in DK's version were taken directly from Rushton's 30 years of research and are therefore biased towards the hereditarian position." This is a misunderstanding. As was pointed out numerous times during the mediation, the current structure of the article are based on the structure of Nesbitt [14]. In other words, we took the leading environmentalist in the world and structured the article the same way that he structured his article.
• "DK's version was just thrust upon us." Well, I encourage all participants to read through the archives of the mediation [15]. Nothing was "thrust." Indeed, there were two separate major rewrites of the article, separated by a week's worth of commentary and discussion. Almost every editor involved made specific suggestions and almost all of these were incorporated.
• I am unaware of a single editor, other than Muntuwandi, who believes that the article we have now is worse then the article we started with. Of course, the article still has many, many problems, as I am the first to admit. And many, many editors have problems, sometimes conflicting, with the current article. But, to justify a total revert, one would need to argue, with details, that the current article is worse. And that could be correct! But someone needs to make the argument before doing a total revert.
• I agree with many of the comments that Slrubenstein makes above. For example, the section on the Flynn effect could be much, much better. But the good news is that we now have a process for fixing such problems, as MathSci demonstrated in fixing the History section and I demonstrated in fixing the Assumptions section. (And, again, I don't know of a single editor who thinks that those fixes did not significantly improve the article.) I hope that someone will do the same for the Flynn effect section.

Again, I am happy to engage in a detailed discussion of this topic. Yet there are two separate issues. First, is what we have now better? Second, how can we improve it? As for me, the next section on my list to tackle is the Adoption studies one. Look for a proposed draft (and a request for comments) soon. David.Kane (talk) 13:47, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

David, I have one immediate suggestion for you, for you as the person who put together the current draft. Go through the pre-mediation article, which Muntuwandi (and others, myself included, at least partially) like, and see what properly sourced material is there that is not in your draft. My suggestion is: any material that is properly sourced from the older draft that fits into the current draft (that has an obvious appropriate place in David Kane's draft) should be cut and pasted in.

Also, I too have questions about the organization. You say it came from Nesbitt, but didn't it come from an appendix from Nesbitt? Material in appendixes can have all sorts of statuses, they are not necessarily the best representation of the author's views. I thought appendix B was Nesbitt responding to Rushton and Lynn et. al, and he organized the appendix based on their claims. Well, if he did that, the structure of the appendix, which is what is at issue, is really Lynn and Rushton's views, not Nesbitt's right? Slrubenstein | Talk 15:17, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

• If there were consensus that it would be useful to go through the old version, find lots of well-sourced material and add it in, I would be ready to do that. But lots of editors would cite, reasonably enough WP:UNDUE when too much material on topic X, however well-sourced, were added. For example, there were many quotes/descriptions from Richard Lynn in the old version. Should that be added? It is all correctly sourced! Again, as best I can see, the way forward is to attack the article section-by-section. As part of that process, I agree that we should use the old version as a resource. In fact, I did precisely that in re-doing the Assumptions section!
• Nesbitt wrote it. It is Appendix B of his book. But note how it first came to my attention. MathSci suggested it and provided a copy. Unless you believe that MathSci is merely a tool of "Occam and Co.", I think that the fact that he suggested it as an excellent neutral secondary source is all that needs be said. This is Nesbitt's summary of the academic debate over race and intelligence. Now, of course, much of this debate is driven by hereditarians, but that is true no matter who does the summarizing. But, again, if you want to suggest a different secondary source, I would be happy to consult that as well. Note the pages from Loehlin et al. that I have posted [16] in the History article. I also have Mackintosh, also recommended by MathSci, on order.

David, please do not personalize this. We all know the fault lines here, but I did not mention mathSci and I did not mention Captain Occam, because I did not think they were relevant. If your point is that you have tried to operate by consensus with ideas from a range of people - well, fine, I honestly di dnot mean to suggest that you had not. Please do not take this personally: the problem is that there was not sufficient discussion of your last draft. remember, after your first draft there was a lot of discussion - yes, which you encouraged - and which led to your second draft. Some people then rushed to end the mediation at that point. You will remember that I opposed that. Had we continued the mediation, there would have been more discussion ofyour second draft, more suggestions, which surely would have led to a third.

The issue here is procedural and I think Muntuwandi has a good and valid point to make and it is worth serious consideration even if some people don't agree. The procedural question is, what should we do when closing mediation? Had we turned your draft into a specific "draft" page, which is just what Muntuwandi is suggesting, we would have continued the process of discussing your draft, raising issues, makind suggestions, which would then have led to a third draft - the only difference is that this would have been done unmediated. And this seems quite reasonable and logical to me. We ended the mediation becuase it seemed we could work together and no longer needed a mediator. AT NO POINT was there a decision that your second draft was the final draft. Given that, I think Muntuwandi's is a perfectly constructive suggestion. It is not a repudiation of your draft, it is rather a means to continue the process we were finding so constructive, just without the guiding hand of a mediator. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:23, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

• But do we (you, me, Muntuwandi, others) really disagree on the best way to spend our time going forward. I am about to redraft the Adoption studies section, just as I redrafted the Assumption section. I will post a draft, solicit comment, post a second draft, solicit more comments and so on. I will also post some secondary source descriptions. Isn't that the best way for me to spend time, rather than fighting with Muntuwandi and trying to preserve the progress that has already been made?

In any event, thanks for these comments. If you think that my next project should be the Flynn effect section instead of the Adoption section, please let me know. I am all about consensus! David.Kane (talk) 15:36, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

@Slrubenstein, for your first second and third bullet points, for the most part these issues are already taken care of in the pre-mediation version. There is always room for improvement, but we don't have biased section headings in the pre-mediation version. There is already a brief critique of Lynn's work. The Flynn effect was indeed changed after I raised some concerns and now includes some of the material from the pre-mediation version. As for Brain size, Wicherts states that he is not familiar with any modern MRI studies involving race. The specific issues I raised are by no means exhaustive, but were just used to illustrate some of the problems with DK's version. Looking at the direction things are presently moving in, even if we were to go with DK's version, in the long run it is possible that it will end up looking like the pre-mediation version.

I agree with Slrubenstein that Nisbett is responding to Rushton and Lynn, he is not proactively making these arguments. This will make non-hereditarians look like they are always playing catch-up. Non-hereditarians have their own arguments that include ideas such as race is social construct, environmental factors cause the IQ gap or that race/IQ research is unethical. There are sections, such as "suitability of study" and "utility of research" in the pre-mediation version that already deal with ethics. There is no ethics section in DK's version. Wapondaponda (talk) 15:51, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Wapondaponda (talk) 15:51, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Muntuwandi, you say that several of your points are covered in the premediation version. Let's face it: the pre-mediation version is toast. That is why we just went through four months of mediation. We need a version acceptable to all, and the pre-mediation version was not that. The question is, how to put material you and others consider important into the new version. Here is my proposal for you: cut and paste those specific parts of the pre-mediation version that respond to my quesions and put them in a new section on this talk page. If no one objects, we can then add them to the new version. I understand that you have many problems with DK's version. I am telling you: the only way those problems will be solved is if you bullet-point a list of passages with sources that you want added to the current draft. You can cut and paste from the old version, if you are satisfied with the way it was phrased there. Or, you can draft a new version, and add ciations. If you do not do this, the material will not be added to the article. If you want this material added to the article, the only way I see it happening is if you provide a list of the points, the text you wish added, with proper citations, and put it here first to see if anyone has any objections. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:30, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree that Nesbitt was just responding to Rushton and Jensen in his Appendix B - he probably explains his precise motivation for writing it in the book itself. The book is a populist, possibly slightly tounge-in-cheek, DIY guide for dilligent parents, that are also avid readers, to make their children smarter.

I do now have a copy of Mackintosh's OUP book "IQ and human intelligence". (So far it has just helped me fall asleep, but that could also be ferry-lag or culture shock.) It is an animal behaviourist's view of the subject in which he is not frightened to come down on one side or the other. The most relevant section of the book explains very carefully why results of IQ tests to primitive populations tell us almost nothing (pages 180-182, research of Alexander Luria). Taxinomy is not part of their way of thinking. As Mackintosh writes in summary (page 199), "it is important to acknowledge that confident pronouncements about the average intelligence of African peasants, based on the results of standard IQ tests, are foolish and dangerous: an IQ test can only purport to measure the intelligence of people with some common cultural background". Mathsci (talk) 16:59, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

the last Mackintosh statement is very sensible and should be added to the "test scores"-section.mustihussain 21:24, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I hope we are going to keep the current version rather than reverting. I agree that the "Test scores" should be taken to the talk page to be re-edited; it should have a tighter focus. --DJ (talk) 18:02, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I’d just like to point out, again, that my planned revisions to the article that we’ve been discussing for the past few days will include re-incorporating some of the material from before mediation about environmental influences on IQ. This is something I’ll be doing primarily because of Muntuwandi’s complaints about this material being under-represented in the article, so it’s possible that my doing this will make the article satisfactory to him, even if he doesn’t follow Slrubenstein’s suggestion to provide a list of material that he wants added back.

However, I would like for my revisions to address Muntuwandi’s complaints about the article as specifically as possible. So if he can provide a list of material that he wants added back, the way Slrubenstein is suggesting, I’ll use that as the basis for this aspect of my revisions. Yesterday Slrubenstein suggested that I wait a couple of days before going about these revisions, so my current plan is to begin making them tomorrow, as long as Bpesta22 has provided the citations I’m asking for by that point. Muntuwandi, no matter what I’ll be doing the best I can to take your complaints into account when I revise the article, but I think there’s a greater chance of you being satisfied with the result if you can comply with Slrubenstein’s suggestion for you sometime before then. --Captain Occam (talk) 23:44, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

I also hope that Muntuwandi finds the time to make specific suggestions. Either way, my advice is to draft things here, editing/presenting entire sections, rather than editing in place. I think this procedure minimizes edit warring and maximizes consensus. Good luck! David.Kane (talk) 01:38, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

As I mentioned to you before, I know this is your preferred style of editing, but I don’t think it would work very well for the sorts of changes I have in mind. However, I also think that the changes I’m proposing have been discussed for long enough, and enough users have expressed approval of them, that the odds of people edit warring over them should be pretty low.

Unless there are any objections (not that I’m expecting any at this stage), I’ll make the changes I’ve suggested tomorrow. If Muntuwandi has explained in detail by then what specific material he wants to see added back from the version of the article that existed before mediation, I’ll base my revisions partially on his requests; otherwise I’ll do my best to figure out for myself what material should be restored. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:15, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Apologies for the delay, but I think I have explained some of the reasons why I find the pre-mediation version more neutral. The section headings in the pre-mediation version are not identical to Rushton's 30 years....This demonstrates that the pre-mediation version is not heavily reliant on a single source. The pre-mediation version includes sections for environmental arguments such as health, stereotype threat, quality of education and caste-like minorities. These sections are are not included in the current version. The pre-mediation version devotes a lot more to the discussion of ethics. There are sections such as "suitability of study" and "utility of research". There is also a quote from Peter Singer that some may find useful.

The section on African ancestry states "The very low IQ scores reported for sub-Saharan African populations (average of 70) are controversial." This assumes that the IQ scores that have been reported are in fact accurate. The premediation version already has criticism of these findings, including statements from Wicherts who states that these findings are inaccurate and Mark Cohen who argues that these findings are preposterous.

The current lead is one of the few sections that has broad consensus. Though the pre-mediation version has some grammatical flaws, I find it less shocking. For example, the first paragraph makes no mention of any specific racial group or IQ. Given that this article is entitled "Race and intelligence" and not "Race and IQ", or the "black/white IQ gap in the US", I think it is important to start the discussion with general ideas of race and intelligence. It would be ideal to assume that a person reading the article could be from anywhere in the world and may be interested in any supposed racial intelligence differences, or lack thereof, and not necessarily the B/W IQ gap in the US. I also think that any information that is not reliable should not be in the lead, but rather in the body of the article. For example IQ scores outside of the US, or of SIRE groups other than black or white are too unreliable for the lead. Wapondaponda (talk) 18:48, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Muntuwandi: You raise some interesting points. Some I agree with, some I don't.

• "The section headings in the pre-mediation version are not identical to Rushton's 30 years" Untrue. It is tough to take your other comments seriously if you insist on making factually inaccurate claims that anyone can check. They are certainly related, since they are based on Nisbett (2009) who is arguing with Murray/Herrnstein/Jensen/Rushton, but they are not "identical."
• "[T]he pre-mediation version is not heavily reliant on a single source" Neither is the current version. We have dozens of sources. How many is enough?
• "These sections are are not included in the current version" Do keep in mind that the previous version violated WP:SIZE. Half the material needed to go. So, while "caste-like minorities" are, for example, an interesting topic, they are not races, and this article, for better or worse, is about race and intelligence. That is why we do not discuss topics related to Ashkenazi intelligence. They are interesting and well-sourced but not directly related to the topic at hand. Again, I think that there is much useful material to be added and much rewriting to be done. But not every topic/idea/reference under the sun can fit in this article.
• I agree with you that the section on African IQ is very, very weak. Why don't you rewrite it? Include Wicherts and Cohen and anyone else. Just do as MathSci and I have done. Post a draft, solicit comments, incorporate feedback and so on. If all the material that you want is in a previous version, then this should be a simple copy and paste.
• I agree that the lead should be much more global and less US focused. Did you see my version?

Again, I think that we agree about many of the flaws with the current article and the need to make it better. But, as of now, all my efforts are devoted to preventing a pointless and destructive reversion. As best I can tell, you are the only editor still seeking to revert many months of work. David.Kane (talk) 21:07, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

David, do you think it might be a good idea to put this discussion on hold for another day or so? A lot of the problems that are being discussed here might not be problems anymore after I’ve made the revisions I’ve been suggesting. --Captain Occam (talk) 21:15, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

No worries. I am happy to have this conversation whenever anyone wants to have it. I certainly hope that your revisions will help matters. I look forward to seeing them. Good luck! David.Kane (talk) 00:37, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay, everybody. I should be able to get on this sometime within the next day or so. --Captain Occam (talk) 15:55, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

My main concern with Captain Occam drafting environmental arguments is the possibility of straw man type arguments. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:35, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

I think we can all agree that straw man arguments do not conform to policy. Why not let him draft something, and if you see anything you consider a strawman argument, you can remove it to the talk section for discussion. I am sure that in lin with BRD Captain Occam would agree that anything he writes that anyone takes objection to couls be removed to talk for discussion and not be returned to the article unless and until a consensus is reached. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:51, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Muntuwandi, the arguments I’ll be presenting in favor of environmental causes will be the same ones that were presented in the pre-mediation version of the article. In as many cases as possible, I’m going to simply copy the text from the article’s previous version. The only way the arguments I present for environmental causes could be strawmen is if the arguments in the article’s earlier version were strawmen.

You’re the person who’s been trying to get us to add material from the earlier version of the article, or to revert the article to its pre-mediation version. The reason I’ll be adding this material is primarily in response to your requests. If you claim after I’ve done so that the material I’ve added isn’t acceptable because it involves strawman arguments, when this material is what was in the earlier version of the article and you’re the person who asked me to add it, I hope you can understand why that wouldn’t be reasonable.

I’ll be making my revisions over the next several hours. If any of the new material I add (that is, not from the article’s earlier version) is particularly contentious, I’ll be OK with removing it from the article temporarily while it’s discussed. However, I would like all of you to show me the same respect that you showed to David.Kane while he was redrafting the article, in that you’ll allow me to finish making my revisions before you revert any of them. I’ll be changing some sections of the article before others, so if at any point you look at the article and it looks like something’s missing, there’s a good chance that I’m intending to add it myself shortly. I also hope that my changes can be discussed one section at a time, rather than anyone doing a wholesale revert of every change I make tonight. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:04, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Synthesis

I tried to verify a new paragraph that Captain Occam had added about IQ scores in Africa, but was unable to. Editors of a book written in 1988 were described as authors and it was claimed that they "disagreed with Lynn" in a specific way. I couldn't verify that at all - had he even written anything about African IQ scores in the 1980s? In that case this seems to be a very misleading way of writing. I couldn't verify statements about "a large body of research" either. No source was provided for that statement. Mathsci (talk) 07:30, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

1: As far as I know, the source I used from 1988 doesn't discuss Lynn directly; it just says the difference in average IQ is the result of cultural and environmental differences, which is obviously difference from Lynn's position. If you think there's a better way to word this, make a suggestion.

2: I linked to three papers about the correlation between national and state IQs and the social factors described there. All three of them regard this relationship as being well-established; this is something Bryan Pesta and I discussed above.

If the only complaints you have are over these minor issues of wording, that isn't a valid reason for reverting the entire section, particularly when I'm still in the process of making other revisions. I'll see if I can come up with a better way to describe the opinions of the authors of the 1988 book, but other than that you'll need to make some more specific suggestions about what's wrong with what I've said here if you're going to revert it again. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:38, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Here is the paragraph which I find is problematically written. I can't see how this material can be included at the moment. I have not been able to verify most of the statements, as written. In its original context it referred to IQ scores in sub-Saharan Africa.

A large body of research has shown that average IQ scores of states and nations correlates significantly with a number of other factors including average health, average income, infant mortality and crime. This correlation is in fact stronger among developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa than it is in Western countries. In a 1988 literature review, S. H. Irvine, John W. Berry have also reported that individual IQ scores in Southern Africa have the same predictive validity regardless of race, so that an African white with a score of 70 would tend to have the same occupational and educational performance as an African black of the same score, and the same would be true of African blacks and whites with IQs of 100. However, these authors disagree with Lynn about the low average IQ of African blacks being due partially to genetic differences, concluding instead that they are primarily the result of cultural and environmental factors.

References

Mathsci (talk) 07:41, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't understand what the problem is. Have you actually read any of these sources? Other than the fact that Irvine and Berry don’t directly discuss Lynn in their book, which I’ve now clarified in the article, this paragraph is supported by the sources I’m using. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:58, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not your private blog. The above is just WP:OR and WP:SYNTH - I can't see anything that can be salvaged at the moment. The first two references are about the US. It seems to be you telling us that these form a "large body of research". I did find this review [17] which again questions the methodology and poor database underlying Lynn's findings. And yes I have looked at the sources. That's why I was puzzled by you describing Irvine and Berry as authors when they were in fact editors. Mathsci (talk) 08:13, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Accusing me of OR and Synth isn’t helpful if you can’t provide specific examples. The two studies involving state IQs in the United States are citations for this sentence: “A large body of research has shown that average IQ scores of states and nations correlates significantly with a number of other factors including average health, average income, infant mortality and crime.” Since this sentence is discussing correlations both between states and between nations, the citation is relevant. This material was added mostly at Bryan Pesta’s suggestion, so if you have a problem with it, he’s the main person whom you should be discussing this with.

I also don’t understand the relevance of the review of Lynn’s book that you’re linking me to. Are you saying you think that should be added to the article? The article already contains enough criticisms of Lynn to show how controversial his conclusions are; I don’t think we need to include every criticism of Lynn that we’re able to find just because of the fact it exists. --Captain Occam (talk) 08:23, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, it looks like maybe what you have a problem with is just the phrase “A large body of research”. I don’t consider the wording of this phrase all that important, so I’ve changed it just in case that’ll get rid of the problem you have with this paragraph.

If you aren’t satisfied with that either, I really don’t have any idea what other problem you think there is with this. --Captain Occam (talk) 08:32, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

All right, we’re in another situation where Mathsci is continuing to revert my edits while no longer making any attempts to justify it in this discussion. I find this incredibly ironic, considering Mathsci has told us several times within the past week that he’s not going to participate in this article anymore.

After how many times this has happened in the History of the race and intelligence controversy, I’ve pretty much given up on trying to get Mathsci to justify his reverts with something other than threats or name-calling. (Although I’d certainly appreciate it if he did.) I would appreciate if else who’s reading this pays attention to whether Mathsci provides any justification for removing the material I’ve added, and restores it again if he doesn’t provide this while continuing to remove it. --Captain Occam (talk) 12:30, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

<- Captain Occam's content still does not match the sources. The sources I have looked at make it quite clear that the assessment of tests applied to primitive communities has severe limitations. This is discussed at length in various reliable secondary sources. Captain Occam is POV-pushing by attempting to remove any reference to these statements. He seems to be trying to make some point of his own which is not reflected in any sources. I don't know why he is removing the sourced statements about Alexander Luria from the textbook of Nicholas Mackintosh. Perhaps he could explain this more carefully here. At the moment what he writes reads like original research to make a WP:POINT, unsupported by secondary sources. The fact that Lynn records the average of African nations for which there have been no measurements is reported in one of the book reviews cited; Lynn invented his own figures by extrapolation. More importantly, is it now being suggested that the interpretation of IQ tests in Africa and elsewhere are not subject to the caveats mentioned in multiple secondary sources? This seems like a fundamental point that should be included in the article, just because the secondary sources say just that. Mathsci (talk) 14:06, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

First of all, thanks for finally making an effort to justify your edits here.

What I’m trying to do here is not specifically to exclude criticism of Lynn; obviously if Lynn is criticized in the source material he should be criticized here also. The point here, which I’ve made below, is that general criticisms of the IQ testing in Sub-Saharan Africa are a lot more important than criticisms of Lynn, because very little of the actual IQ test data is from him. Compared to some of the other researchers discussed in the article, Lynn also is not all that important in this field—the article certainly shouldn’t be devoting more space to him than it does to Arthur Jensen, as it does in the version you’re reverting to. So because of space limitations, some of the criticism of Lynn that you keep adding needs to be left out.

If there are any specific criticisms of either Lynn or the Sub-Saharan IQ test data that you think it’s essential for the article to include, please mention them here, and I’ll edit the article in order to incorporate them, space allowing. Otherwise, I’ll try to figure them out for myself and edit the article accordingly. This would be my third revert today, while you’ve already reverted the article three times within the past few hours. Since you won’t be able to revert me again without violating 3RR, I recommend that you let me know specifically what material you think needs to be included in this section, in order to maximize the chance that my next revision will satisfy you. --Captain Occam (talk) 14:46, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

IQ testing on primitive communities has an extensive literature, including the 1988 CUP volume of articles and the book of Mackintosh. The letter in Nature by one of the editors of the CUP volume summarises the caveats. The reviews of the much later post-2000 books of Lynn and collaborators seem to be restatements of those caveats as well as specific criticisms of Lynn - his selective use of data, extrapolation of data and scientific methodology. Lynn's findings are cited by Rushton and Jensen. If there have been doubts about the quality of Lynn's scholarship, that has to be said. At the moment I would suggest that as far as testing primitive communities is concerned, some version of my summary of the three present sources is required. I think that the caveats and limitations can be explained in slightly more detail than I've done so far. That probably involves reading material in the book edited by Berry and Irvine. The hardback version can be read on amazon.co.uk. I don't understand what justification there is for saying that Jensen is more important than Lynn in this article. Indeed it would be normal to assume that he appears as second author in the 2005 article with Rushton because he is playing a less active role now. But again that seems off-topic. Incidentally I have been adding sourced material, so I'm not sure why you mention 3RR. I'm not at all happy with what you've written because it doesn't match the sources and still seems to be original research. It's still quite unclear why two papers on US test scores have anything to do with the issues of testing primitive communities. Mathsci (talk) 15:48, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Even if he’s taking a less active role in this area than he used to, Jensen has published more research on race and intelligence than any other researcher, and most of the established premises of it (IQ’s predictive validity; IQ heritability within groups and how this affects heritability between groups; what it means for the hereditarian hypothesis to be the “default hypothesis”), is based primarily on his research. How Jensen is to race and intelligence research is similar to how Charles Darwin is to the theory of evolution, so the fact that he’s less active in this area nowadays doesn’t make all that much of a difference in how much space he deserves compared to people like Lynn.

It sounds like what you’re saying is that what matters to you is that the article continue using the same sources that it currently does. This material will have to be condensed, and the information about IQ’s predictive validity will need to be included also. But if you just want to make sure all of the same sources used by your revision are preserved, I think I can do that. Would that satisfy you? --Captain Occam (talk) 17:07, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I have toi say, I think mathSci is right that there were examples of fundamental violations of NOR, one of our core content policies, in Captain Occam's recent revision. Captain Occam adminst that he linked articles that had not been linked by another source, and used an article that did not refer directly to the topic. This all too easily leads to SYNTH which is absolutely forbidden in articles. What I like about MathSci's improvements is that he uses different aqrticles by others to provide contxt, without synthesizing arguments. I think it is a big step in the right direction! Slrubenstein | Talk 17:27, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Here's my suggested revision to this section. I've gotten rid of the part discussing state IQs, since the opinion here seems to be that those are Synth, and I've also kept almost all of the material that Mathsci added, albeit in condensed form.

Due to cultural differences, the limitations in assessment of primitive communities by intelligence tests have long been acknowledged by researchers. In the mid-1970s the Soviet psychologist Alexander Luria discovered that it was impossible to devise an IQ test to assess peasant communities in Russia because taxonomy was alien to their way of reasoning. The very low IQ scores reported for sub-Saharan African populations (average of 70) are particularly controversial. According to anthropologist Mark Cohen, using Western standards this would mean that African countries should be largely dysfunctional. Given that individuals in these countries lead "vibrant artistic, symbolic and spiritual lives", according to Cohen these scores are not likely to be accurate.

A review by Nicholas Mackintosh of Lynn's book Race Differences in Intelligence (2006), where some of these findings are presented, has also criticized Lynn's occasional manipulation of data, some of it originally collected by the reviewer. He has also questioned Lynn's inference elsewhere that Kalahari bushmen, with an allegedly average measured IQ of 54, have a mental age equivalent to an average European 8-year-old; and that an 8 year old European child would have no difficulty learning the skills required for surviving in the same desert environment.

Studies have found that average IQ scores of nations correlates significantly with a number of other factors including average health, average income, infant mortality and crime, and that this correlation is actually stronger among developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa than it is in Western countries. In a 1988 literature review, S. H. Irvine, John W. Berry have also reported that individual IQ scores in Southern Africa have the same predictive validity regardless of race, so that an African white with a score of 70 would tend to have the same occupational and educational performance as an African black of the same score, and the same would be true of African blacks and whites with IQs of 100. However, they take a position different from Lynn’s about whether genetic differences contribute to the low average IQ of African blacks, concluding that they are primarily the result of cultural and environmental factors instead.

References

Things to keep in mind are that the criticisms of Lynn are already mentioned in the previous section of the article (the end of the “test scores” part), as well as what I mentioned before about how presenting criticism of sub-Saharan African IQ scores is a lot more important than presenting criticism of Lynn specifically, since most of the data about this isn’t from him. I also reworded the part that refers to Lynn considering Kalahari bushmen to be “mentally retarded”, since Lynn does not actually use that term, and a lot of researchers in this area consider mental retardation as involving more than just low IQ. Slrubenstein, how does this revision look to you?

--Captain Occam (talk) 17:57, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Captain Occam, I appreciate3 your willingness to compromise. Honestly, I thought the extended quotations in mathSci's version were informative, and I miss them — but I do understand your concern for conciseness and I unerstand why you removed it. my main concern is the last paragraph in your proposed next revision - it seems to me that it belongs in the preceeding section, not this section. Slrubenstein | Talk 18:17, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

There are two reasons why I have this paragraph in the section that I do. One is that it’s discussing differences around the world, and in Sub-Saharan Africa in particular, and the section it’s in is specifically about differences outside the U.S. And the other reason is because IQ’s predictive validity between African countries, as well as between individuals in southern Africa, can be considered an argument against the IQ results from these countries being invalid. The proposal I’m making devotes two paragraphs to criticism of these results, so in the interest of complying with NPOV policy I think we ought to present the other side of this controversy in the same section.

Paragraphs can be moved around fairly easily, though, so if that’s your only objection to this revision I think I can probably go ahead and add it to the article. Is that all right with you? --Captain Occam (talk) 18:27, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

NPOV applies to the article as a whole. I am not suggesting deleting the material, just putting it earlier, at the end of the preceeding section. We could retitle the subsection "Questions about the reliability of comparative data from the third world" to make clear that the subsection is raising questions about elements of the entire section. I think that makes sense, structurally. And there can't be any NPOV concerns since nothing is being deleted. But the last paragraph seems to fit in with the general section, not the subsection. Other than that I do not have any major concerns. however, I think it is worth finding out what other people thing - AProck, Muntuwandi, Varoon Arya ... Unless you just want to invite them to make additional edits ...Slrubenstein | Talk 19:38, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Now that David.Kane has brought up the possibility of reverting some of my edits, it matters to me that I get the changes I made to a stable state as quickly as possible, so we can have a better idea what this section will look like while deciding which of my changes should and shouldn’t be kept. I’m going to implement the compromise I suggested for now, and we can discuss where the last paragraph should go (or anything else) as other users express their opinions about this section. Depending on the conclusion we reach in response to David.Kane’s proposal, it’s also possible that this section will end up being reorganized such that the question of where this paragraph should go won’t be relevant anymore. --Captain Occam (talk) 20:17, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Recent revisions

I guess I’m finished working on this for now. There are a lot more revisions that I think the article would benefit from, but I don’t think I should be making more revisions than what we’ve discussed here, since anything else wouldn’t have consensus.

Here are the main things that I’ve changed:

1. As we’ve discussed previously, I combined the “African IQ” section with the criticism of Lynn, since there’s obviously a lot of overlap between these two. One thing that this results in is more of an emphasis on criticism of the general idea that 70 is an accurate average IQ score for Sub-saharan Africans, and less of an emphasis on criticism of Lynn specifically, but I think that’s reasonable in general. One thing that’s apparent from looking through the bibliographies of Lynn’s books is that less than 10% of his IQ data is data that he collected himself; the rest is from studies published by other researchers. Therefore, we can’t equate criticisms of Lynn with criticisms of these studies in general, and the latter are probably more important.
2. I’ve changed the titles of the sections to make them more consistent with what we agreed on during mediation. One of Muntuwandi’s complaints about the article was that the section titles were too similar to the section titles used by Jensen and Rushton, and I think there was a consensus for the section titles we agreed on in mediation, so using the titles we agreed on in mediation seemed like the most sensible solution.
3. I’ve added back discussions about a few influences on IQ from the pre-mediation version: education, stereotype threat, genetics, and caste-like minorities. I’ve also added two lines of data that hadn’t been part of the article previously. One of them is racial admixture studies in the “geographic ancestry” section, which is something we’d discussed here previously, and other users approved of adding this line of data. The other is the Abecedarian Early Intervention Project in the “education” section, which was not discussed here before, but I’m hoping this addition won’t be contentious since it’s the most significant example available of how education can reduce the difference in average IQ between races.

Things that still need to be done:

1. Revising the discussion of transracial adoption studies in the “rearing conditions” section. (David.Kane has said that he intends to do this.)
2. Providing better references for the discussion of reaction time in the “processing efficiency” section. (Since this section was written primarily by Bpesta22, I think it would be best if he can do this. If he doesn’t know how to handle Wikipedia’s citation format, he could also just provide the journal links to us, and one of us can add the citations to the article.)
3. Drafting and adding the “significance” section. (I’m intending to do this myself eventually, unless someone else volunteers.)

As a side note, I really hope that my recent revisions will reduce other people’s tendency to accuse me of only being involved in this article for the purpose of promoting a hereditarian point of view. I consider the article to be less pro-hereditarian now than it was before I revised it, because it now discusses several environmental influences on IQ (education, stereotype threat and caste-like minorities) that it hadn’t discussed earlier. What matters to me is just that the article be made more informative, and I think I’ve accomplished that. --Captain Occam (talk) 09:22, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Could you clarify the new structure? It is confusing to me. Before, under debate overview, we have the 12 (or whatever) main sub-parts of the debate over race and intelligence. One might reasonably question whether 12 was too many or too few. One might reasonably question how much material we devoted to each topic. One might argue that some of these subparts should be substantially expanded, with subparts of their own. But, at least, the organization was clear. Now, I can't make sense of the organization. Why is Debate overview at the same level as Variables potentially affecting intelligence in groups? Why are Processing efficiency and Spearman's Hypothesis in separate sections? I view this as a key point. Overall structure, if well-designed, makes it easier for all of is to work together. It would have been polite of you to seek comments on this restructuring before diving in willy-nilly. David.Kane (talk) 15:20, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I was trying to do two things when I restructured the article. One was to address as many of Muntuwandi’s complaints as possible, and the other was to bring the article a little closer to what we agreed on in mediation. If you look at the outline that’s posted at Wikipedia_talk:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2009-11-12/Race_and_Intelligence#Proposed_outline, you’ll see that a lot of what I’ve changed (both the section titles and the new sections I’ve added) were part of what we agreed on there.

As for the way I’ve divided the article, the information I’ve put in the “debate overview” section is about general data that relates to the study of this topic; Spearman’s Hypothesis and the Flynn Effect both fall into this category. “Variables affecting intelligence in groups” is for specific environmental or biological factors that can affect IQ. Describing these lines of data in terms of specific influences on IQ, and naming them accordingly, was something else we agreed on in mediation.

I’m not at all devoted to the structure I came up with, so you’re welcome to improve on it if you’d like to. This can involve restoring certain parts of the article to the way they were yesterday if you like, but I would like you to not revert every recent change I’ve made. It seems like at least some of the material I’ve added must be worthwhile to you, even if you don’t like the overall structure. --Captain Occam (talk) 16:46, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate Captain Occam's work, and, as he anticipated, mathSci's improvements. I think the current version (with MathSci's improvements) has a better (more inclusive, and also, I think a problem-oriented rather than place-oriented communicates the real issue more clearly) title to the section on comparative data, and I also think his improvement is to provide more context, it really shows the global dimensions and provides more information. With MathSci's improvements to Captain Occam's work, I think we are making real progress. Captain Occam, thanks for inviting people to improve on your work. That is exemplary editing. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:23, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Wanting To Revert Occam's Changes

I find myself wanting to revert all of Occam's recent changes. But, if I am the only one that feels that way, then obviously I shouldn't. It just seems that, in aggregate, they represent everything that is wrong with this article, and much of Wikipedia in general. (Much of this opinion is based on my recent education by MathSci.)

• This is an encyclopedia article not your personal take on the academic research. Use secondary sources as much as possible. Consider a representative change:

A 2009 meta-analysis by Jelte Wicherts found evidence of significant publication bias in 55 studies of stereotype threat and its effect on IQ, in which those that found a strong effect were more likely to be published than those which did not. Reviewing both the published and unpublished studies, Wicherts found that stereotype threat did not have an effect on all test-taking settings in which a difference in average scores is observed between races, and therefore was not an adequate explanation for the racial IQ gap.[101]

What is this sentence doing here? I am not denying that we have a reliable source nor that this is a fair summary of Wicherts' views. But this is an unpublished working paper that has, at best, a tangential relationship to the topic of Race and Intelligence. I understand that it may be, at times, important to use and cite a primary source. But are there no limits?

• We need to pay attention to WP:SIZE and Occam's recent additions come close, depending on the exact measure used, to violating it. Consider another specific change:

The comparison of Jews and Arabs, for example, is based on a news report that, in 1992, 26% of Jewish high school students passed their matriculation exam, as opposed to 15% of Arab students.[115]

Again, I am not denying that this is a true statement from a reliable source. But what is it doing in this article? And, moreover, if such a statement does belong here, then I don't understand what grounds we could possibly use for excluding any other similarly well-sourced statement. Soon, we will be make where we started, with a 25 page article that includes 300 references (each correct and well-sourced) but which, taken as a whole, is absolutely useless to any reader.

So, if it were me, I would just revert all these changes and then have a detailed discussion about them on the talk page. Some are reasonable, but the entire pile just has too much junk relative to what is reasonable and needed. But if I am the only one who feels that way . . . David.Kane (talk) 19:27, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

As I said before, if there’s specific material that you want to remove or change, please go ahead. I made the best decisions that I could, based on both what other users were requesting and what we agreed on during mediation, but I’m sure they weren’t perfect. However, I would hope that you don’t regard all of the changes I made as useless. I also tightened the wording of several sections, and added some data (particularly racial admixture studies and data about education) whose addition seems hard to argue with. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:50, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

This structure is closer to the mediation plan, using VA's idea of sectioning variables. I think it will be more stable this way. This structure seems clear and adaptable.

I agree it can be narrowed down. For example 'Reliability of Test Scores'. The test scores are generally considered reliable for any population by the psychometric community. Reading that section, imagining you know nothing of the topic, what does it make you think about the reliability? It's synth. As David said: This is an encyclopedia article not your personal take on the academic research. mikemikev (talk) 20:08, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

@Mikemikev - well, that is a non-sequitor. The section contains significant views from reliable sources. NPOV requires us to include different views, including minority views. You are just arguing that only one view (that of psychometricians) be included in the article. That simply won't fly. You can't ask us to violate a core policy. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:16, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

@ David Kane: I certainly agree that in all cases we need to adhere to WP:RS. As for length, I do not agree with David Kane. Just as individual IQs can be much lower or higher than the group average, some Wikipedia articles will be much smaller or larger than the average - this is a necessary and positive consequence of having an encyclopedia that is not paper, and that is able to have articles on topics not included in other encyclopedias. I think the length of an article should reflect the amount of literature (in this case scholarly literature, but I mean "reliable source" containing "significant views") out there, which is often an index of how controversial a topic is. This is not the article on string beans, and we should not be surprised that an article on racial differences and intelligence scores will be a lot longer than the article on string beans. What is important is that it represent all significant views, and explain complex issues clearly. For example, the Israeli-Arab quote is just one example - but it makes it very clear how diverse the data is that people are relying on. We can't just deal with abstractions, some readers need concrete examples and I understand that. In the past David and Captain Occam have asked Muntuwandi to raise specific problems on the talk page for discussion. If that is fair of Muntuwandi (or mathSci) it is fair to ask this of me or David Kane. I am not saying Captain occam's version is perfect; I really would like Aprock and Varoon Arya to weigh in. But I think we will make more progress by discussing the overall structure, and individual sections, separately, than be constant reverting. But if Three other editors who were active in the mediation agree with David Kane, I'll shut up. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:16, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

@Slrubenstein: A 'non-sequitor'? Don't be ridiculous. I think you'll find the synth violation is achieved by cherry picking from psychometricians, so what you say is absurd; just the usual meaningless spiel. mikemikev (talk) 20:23, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

@Slrubenstein: My mistake! I was looking at Mathsci's version. Occam's is fine. I apologise. mikemikev (talk) 21:04, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Apology accepted! Slrubenstein | Talk 21:40, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

@David.Kane: I too am very concerned about size. There is a great deal to recommend a smaller article that samples the range of opinions more so than one that comprehensively covers everything written on the topic. An encyclopedia reader wants to be introduced to the topic, not overwhelmed by it. The consideration of WP:UNDUE helps motivate this all the more. --DJ (talk) 07:12, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Richard Lynn?

Captain Occam appears to be adding improperly sourced statements that directly contradict previous and subsequent statements in the article concerning the research of Richard Lynn. Could he please explain why he is doing so? Mathsci (talk) 01:25, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

The paper by Heiner Rindermann seems to be accurately described: [18] --DJ (talk) 01:39, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Mathsci, you've made this removal four times within the space of less than 24 hours, which is a violation of 3RR. You also haven't yet made any attempt to justify it, other than claiming in your edit summary that it's original research, and not replying when I ask you to justify this claim. Everything in that paragraph is properly sourced, and is supported by the sources that it's using. Are you going to make any attempt to justify this removal, or are you going to just keep removing it while refusing to cooperate with our attempts at discussion about it?

Captain Occam, please put talk concerning the article History of the race and intelligence controversy on the talk page of that article, not this one. Also, when you want to refer to an edit dif, please provide a link to the actual edit dif and not to the page history, it is unclear what you are talking about (which edit, specifically). Slrubenstein | Talk 16:42, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

At the moment, the second paragraph of the "Comparative data outside of the USA" section is a mess. There's no apparent organization, other than to just list a collection of criticisms of international IQ comparisons, while excluding all information about their predictive validity. It's a perfect example of this. Since Mathsci is the only user here who's pressing for the information he doesn't like to be excluded from this section, and he isn't making any effort to justify his claims that this information is original research, there's no reason for this part of the article to stay in this state. DJ, David.Kane, Mikemikev: let's fix this. --Captain Occam (talk) 12:09, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I certainly think the second paragraph is critically important to the article. If you think that the section (and we should look at the whole section, not just one paragraph) can be better organized, well, that is certainly a reasonable concern. If it can be improved, well, sure, why not try? But I would strongly object to removing any of the content. If you want to propose a more effective way to organize all of this information, I'd love to see it, but none of the information, certainly nothing from the secon paragraph, should be removed. Slrubenstein | Talk 16:35, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

This isn’t about the history article, it’s about this one. Mathsci has now reverted it five times in the past day and a half: [19] [20] [21] [22] [23]. Each time, he’s removed the same paragraph describing predictive validity of IQ in Sub-Saharan Africa, and each time he’s been unwilling to explain why except to claim that it’s original research. When other users have asked him what there is in this paragraph that isn’t in the source material, he hasn’t responded.

I have tried to improve this section, according to the compromise you and I came up with about it, and when I do Mathsci just reverts it while refusing to participate in any of the discussion about it. Multihussain is doing this also, although unlike Mathsci he doesn’t appear to have violated 3RR over this yet. The paragraph they keep removing is one that you and I discussed when we came up with the outline for this section, and you seemed to agree that NPOV policy required that the article include it, although you disagreed with me about which section of the article it should be in. I’m not trying to remove any content here; I just want to add back the paragraph that Mathsci keeps removing. If you think I ought to try improving this section again, what do you think I should do if Mathsci just continues to revert my edits while refusing to participate in any discussion about them? --Captain Occam (talk) 18:51, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Captain Occam, you cannot criticize MathSci for edit warring at the History of the race and intelligence controversy article, provide a link to that page, and then tell us that you are not talking about the "History of the race and intelligence controversy" article. And yes, you DID accuse mathsci of edit warring there. You did it in this sentence: "Mathsci, you've made this removal four times within the space of less than 24 hours, which is a violation of 3RR." which I have simply cut and pasted from your 12:09 edit, above. You wrote it. What are you trying to say? What do you mean, "This isn't about the history article?" If it is not about the history article, then why did you write an entire paragraph referring to the history article? Are you not capable of following your own link? Slrubenstein | Talk 18:59, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

captain o, excuse me but are you blind? i added a line or two + a reference to baumert & co. this was reverted by your friend mikemikev for no reason at all. i reverted back and added another line + a reference to flynn. this was also reverted by your friend mikemikev. at the end i didn't revert, i just added baumert and flynn (again!!). and now dj has removed almost everything! this is preposterous! mustihussain 19:11, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

The level of detail in this section is WP:UNDUE for this article. It could be easily reduced to a few sentences and still achieve the same effect because there are appropriate pages to link out to. Thoughts? --DJ (talk) 18:18, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

As an interim step I replaced the controversial text with what I hope is a non-controversial quote. We can subsequently replace that with a neutral summary when one is written. --DJ (talk) 18:49, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I think this is a good starting point. I hope Mathsci can agree with this also, and not continue edit warring over it. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:05, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

no! this is not a good starting point! i find it quite disturbing that a spa like you have hijacked the article. and do you really think that you're the only one who can play the spa game?

now, do you? mustihussain 19:19, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the section can be shortened. I think DJ did a fair job in summarizing much of the material. However, i think that it is essential that three things DJ left out be put back in. First and second, the parts about Luria and Reuning - they are critical because they explain why many researchers think that data collected would be inappropriate for comparison. Third, there are several negative reviews of Lynn's book, including two extended quotes from Mackintosh. Again, I think the reasons for the negative reviews, including the fact that several researchers question Lynn's credibility, should go in. I think there is a way to do this without taking up all the space Mathsci's version took up. I suggest a sentence saying several reviewers have criticized Lynn's book, and then pick just one of the two Mackintosh quotes. I think that would be a reasonable compromise. (When it comes to defensing the validity of cross-cultural comparisons, I think this already is covered in the article. If lynn ever defended himself against the specific accusations levelev by Mackintosh I am sure we could include a one or two line summary of his defense ... although it gos without saying that he disagrees with his critics.

Also, DJ, while I agree, the "alas" is editorializing and should go. Slrubenstein | Talk 19:20, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

• Let's try to rewrite this section on the talk page. I think it will produce a better product. Rapid, unorganized editing creates an unorganized product.
• What I added to the article was not my own text but rather a quote from Wicherts, who is perhaps the most cogent and recent critic of Lynn, writing in what appears to be a good NPOV fashion.
• Let's be sure to keep Wicherts' main points in what we re-write, while adding additional points if needed. Here are those 4 points with references removed for clarity:

1. It is important to note that an observed IQ score does not necessarily equal a particular level of general intelligence or g, as it is necessary to consider the issue of validity in interpreting an observed score as an indication of the position on a latent variable such as g.
2. Several authors have questioned whether the IQ scores of Africans are valid and comparable to scores in western samples in terms of g.
3. Some reject the very possibility of obtaining a valid measure of g in Africa with western IQ tests, while others consider it relatively unproblematic.
4. The psychometric issue of measurement invariance is crucial to the comparability of test scores across cultural groups in terms of latent variables, such as g. ... the number of studies addressing measurement invariance is small.

--DJ (talk) 19:45, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

@Slrubenstein - (1) You would include the details from Luria and Reuning to provide examples of why "Some reject the very possibility of obtaining a valid measure of g in [non-industrial cultures] with western IQ tests", correct? I didn't see the need for the examples when we can just point the generality. The key reason for not using them is that they seem to trivialize the general nature of the problem by pointing to small populations when the key concern is about the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. (2) You would add the review from Mackintosh? It's a perfectly valid source, but I would suggest going with the 2010 Wicherts papers because they have the value of being peer reviewed and offer a coherent alternative hypothesis to Lynn rather than just a few criticisms. Lynn has a follow-up comment to Wicherts which can be cited for his counter-argument. That could close out the section. --DJ (talk) 20:24, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Sources to draw from:

--DJ (talk) 20:35, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Debate assumptions and methodology

The proposed experiments described by Rowe 2005 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15641922) may be more appropriate to present in the "Debate assumptions and methodology" section than what is currently given. Any objections? --DJ (talk) 08:44, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

What makes it more appropriate? Slrubenstein | Talk 10:18, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I can't find any supporting citations for the material in the paragraph beginning with "In theory". It may be WP:OR. --DJ (talk) 17:36, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

I say dump it, as it's awkward and not very realistic. Instead:

As with many variables in social science (e.g., sex, age, marital status, etc), race cannot be randomly assigned to research subjects. All race and IQ data are therefore correlational in nature and do not permit causal inferences. Researchers instead use statistical techniques and other types of control to infer whether or not a third variable (e.g., income or education) can "explain" the race gap on IQ scores. -Bpesta22 (talk) 22:31, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

No worries on deleting the "In theory" section. But can't cite Loehlin for something that is not there. So, I just deleted whole thing. The more that we can edit out extraneous material, especially material not correctly cited to a specific source, the better. No objection if someone wants to use Rowe (2005). David.Kane (talk) 23:17, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Mikemike's reverting me

I changed the sentence in the section on IQ outside of the US to "Richard Lynn and others" because the sentence's sources - those footnotes at the end - mention Lynn. Now Mikemikev accuses me of changign it to sneak in some "fringe" claim? You are accusing me of making the edit to push a point of view? I consider this a personal attack. How dare you accuse me of sneaking in some claim about Fringey whatever. Revert me using an attack my integrity again you little turd and I will take it to AN/I. You don't like my edit? Take it to this talk page before you screw around with things you do not understand.

NPOV states that we should attribute views, especially when controversial. I am not claiming that any view is fringe, but the section of the article itself says that this is a controversial area. So policy requires us to attribute views when possible. I attributed this view to lynn because he wrote the book cited in the same sentence. You want to add a line saying that "All psychometricians think this" Mikemikev? Well, go find a reliable source from a significant author or professional organization that says so. The add the source and then you can add the attribution.

But stop trying to violate Wikipedia policy. Wikipedia presents views, not truths. And the views we present have to be verifiable. This particular view is verified by reference to a book by Lynn. All that I am doing here is what I did in the History of the R&I controversy article. Go ask Mathsci and Captain Occam. I partially reverted an edit Mathsci made, and restored an attribution Captain Occan had placed in there. That is all I am doing here. And you have the audacity to accuse me of POV pushing, when you are just an NPOV-pushing SPA? Slrubenstein | Talk 15:54, 26 April 2010 (UTC)