Talk:Race, Evolution, and Behavior

NPOV Dispute: Mass deletion of peer-reviewed sources favorable to the book

See [1]. Yes, Rushton has done some of the studies. But there are many others involved. There is no reason for excluding even studies done only by Rusthong.Miradre (talk) 09:26, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

The edit is fully justified. Some of the concerns have already been discussed to death above on this very talk page. You seem to be engaging in a bit of IDIDN'THEARTHAT and initiate endless and ultimately pointless discussion threads which lead nowhere, apparently in some kind of hope that you can just physically wear other editors out. The bottom line is that you can't have a section on "Critical reviews" and have it be full of works by the author who is supposed to be under review. A section like that is supposed to have OTHER, independent, sources.

The only non-Rushton source I saw in there was by Satoshi Kanazawa and that has obvious problems of its own and should not be used as a source in this (or any Wikipedia) article.Volunteer Marek (talk) 09:38, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

What policy are you using for justifying deleting every favorable peer-reviewed study? There are over 30 authors involved.You deleted every study. Regardless of Rushton was man, co-author, or not even in the study.Miradre (talk) 09:55, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Also your claim that there is only one non-Rushton source if false. See the studies by Figueredo and various colleagues. See the studies by Amigo and colleagues. See the studies by Veselka and colleagues. See the studies by Linden and colleagues. See the studies by Charles and Egan. See the studies by Kanazawa. See the studies by Voracek.Miradre (talk) 09:59, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Furthermore, for the studies involving Rushton, there is no policy prohibiting citing further peer-reviewed evidence by the author of a theory.Miradre (talk) 10:01, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

The article is about a book. The reviews should be about the book. They should not be a WP:COATRACK of studies, which YOU, think support the book's thesis.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:22, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

The cited studies support the book's theory. Mass deletion of practically every peer-reviewed study that does not fit your own POV, by over 30 different authors, is of course unacceptable.Miradre (talk) 19:27, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

They do not treat the subject of this article.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:29, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

On the contrary, the theory from the book was the focus of every one as was explained in the text.Miradre (talk) 19:35, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Furthermore, again, there is of course no reason that further work by Rushton himself, published in a peer-reviewed journals should be disallowed. For example, why was this material removed? "Rushton (2004) argued that the theory was supported by relationships between brain weight and several other variables among 234 mammalian species: longevity (r = .70), gestation time (.72), birth weight (.44), litter size (-.43), age at first mating (.63), duration of lactation (.62), body weight (.44), and body length (.54). The relationship remained after controlling for body weight and body length. Looking 21 primate species, brain size still correlated .80 to .90 with life span, length of gestation, age of weaning, age of eruption of first molar, age at complete dentition, age at sexual maturity, inter-birth interval, and body weight."Miradre (talk) 11:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Once secondary and tertiary sources being to refer to those studies we will know that they are sufficiently relevant to include here.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:34, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Many of the critical studies are "primary". Should they be removed? If you prefer we can create a section instead called "Later research based on the theory".Miradre (talk) 17:11, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Aesthetic mess

I would also like to suggest that the text is rewritten so that the block quotes - both pro and anti - can be removed. An encyclopedia article is not a newspaper advertisement which collects reviews.Volunteer Marek (talk) 09:43, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I would agree that the excessive quotation in the 'Critical responses' section is a bad idea. Tagging as such. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk(P) 05:38, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

=Comment by Dov Henis

Human Intelligence Is Highly Heritable And Polygenic ?

http://the-scientist.com/2011/08/09/heritability-of-intelligence/ http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/mp201185a.html Genome-wide association studies establish that human intelligence is highly heritable and polygenic.

No kidding!

So What else is new?!

It’s culture, reactions to circumstances, that drives genetic changes. NOT vice versa.

Reaction(s) to circumstances, modified state or behavior, that enhance-increase constrained energy in animate OR inanimate mass format, are retained. This is what evolution is all about. This is what natural selection is. It is postponement of the conversion of mass to energy, to the energy that keeps fueling the universe expansion. The expansion that will be overcome by gravity when most mass is reconverted to the energy that moves on the galaxies clusters. The expansion will then be replaced with gravitational empansion back to singularity…

The RNAs, Earth’s primal organisms, retain-constrain evolutionary energy as long as possible. This is what alternative splicing is about, this is what genetic inheritance is all about…

Dov Henis (comments from 22nd century) http://universe-life.com/

PS: The deceased “the-scientist community forum” posted tens of articles on this general subject… See also http://www.freedolphin.com/?p=25 https://www.economist.com/user/3129364/comments Dov Henis (talk) 07:01, 20 August 2011 (UTC) Is Evolution Predictable

Of course it is. Nearly. Approximation, proportional to extent of included factors. And AFTER comprehending what evolution is…

A. Is Evolution Predictable http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/08/is-evolution-predictable.html?ref=em&elq=0e30965e9cc44cdd9bdc7df4669c78af

B. From DH comment on http://www.sciencenews.org/index/generic/activity/view/id/70846/title/Missing_bits_of_DNA_may_define_humans

Origin And Nature Of Natural Selection

Life is another mass format, a self-replicating mass format. All mass formats are subject to natural selection. Natural selection is the delaying conversion of mass to the energy fueling cosmic expansion. Cosmic expansion is the reconversion of all the Big Bang singularity mass to energy.

Natural Selection Updated 2010, Beyond Historical Concepts:

Natural Selection applies to ALL mass formats. Life, a self-replicating format, is just one of them. Natural Selection Defined:

Natural selection is E (energy) temporarily constrained in an m (mass) format. Period.

Natural selection is a ubiquitous property of each and every and all cosmic mass, spin array, formats, from the biggest black hole to the smallest physical particle. Mass strives to increase its constrained energy content in attempt to postpone its reconversion to energy and to postpone addition of its constitutional energy to the totality of the cosmic energy that fuels the cosmic expansion going on since Big Bang.

Dov Henis (comments from 22nd century) http://universe-life.com/ Dov Henis (talk) 06:58, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Details about the Pioneer Fund

The content that I removed was the result of Volunteer Marek adding nearly-identical content, cited to the same group of sources, on five different articles. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] In most of these cases, these sources were not actually discussing the article's subject, and this shotgun approach to sourcing fits the definition of WP:REFSPAM. There was an extensive dispute over this change when Marek first made it, which resulted in the content being modified to comply with sourcing and NPOV standards on most of the other articles. But nobody remembered to do that here before now.

The fact that Jensen, Eysenck and Whitney are Pioneer Fund grantees is relevant in this article because there's a source (the ISAR article) arguing that this made them biased in favor of the book. But all of the additional information that I removed is from sources that talk about the PF without discussing this book. Since the sources for this statement don't discuss the book, citing them in a sentence about reviews of the book is nothing but an editor's original research to cast more negative light on these reviews. If it's ok to do this, by the same logic there are hundreds of other details we could also include about these researchers, such as that Arthur Jensen is a recipient of the Kistler Prize. We shouldn't go down that route. In the dispute above between Maunus and Miradre, Maunus argued that this article should be limited to sources that specifically discuss the book, and that principle applies here too.

A very similar situation was discussed here. In that case it was a book whose publisher some people consider racist, and the question was whether criticism of the publisher should be included in the article about the book. Consensus quickly determined that in order to include criticism of an organization associated with the book, it must be cited to a source specifically criticizing the book because of that. If you replace that book with this one, and the publisher being discussed there with the PF, it's exactly the same situation that exists here.

As I said, there was previously extensive dispute about this, and my removing this information is something that should have been done months ago as part of the dispute's outcome. Therefore, it would be best if we don't have to argue about this issue yet again. If you don't agree with my reasoning above, or see how the consensus that was reached in the article about Lynn's book applies here, I suggest that we get an outside opinion from someone who isn’t invested in one side or another about this article.Boothello (talk) 01:32, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Ok. First, please don't refer to my edits as REFSPAM since they are anything but that. I suggest you actually read a policy before you start trying to throw it at people. In particular REFSPAM says: Citation spamming is the illegitimate or improper use of citations, footnotes or references in a manner inconsistent with accepted standards. Citation spamming is a form of search engine optimization or promotion that typically involves the repeated insertion of a particular citation or reference in multiple articles by a single contributor. . This is nothing like my insertion of legitimate and well sourced info on the Pioneer Fund into this article. Do you really think the purpose of that edit was ... "search engine optimization or promotion"? Honestly?

Second, as has already been stated and explained to you, the background of the Pioneer Fund IS relevant to these kinds of articles, particularly in cases where every single positive review comes from a Pioneer Fund grantee. This is simply an application of WP:COI. In cases where sources may have a potential conflict of interest and bias, WP:NPOV requires that we properly attribute these sources, which includes giving a proper description of them.

Finally, you've been fighting this battle for months (maybe ... a year? now?) and your continued attempts at removal of such information have not gotten any kind of anything approaching consensus. The fact that another user (Aprock) reverted your latest, yet another, attempt, at doing this exemplifies this.

 Volunteer Marek  04:06, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Did you look at the actual edit that I made? I'm not trying to remove the mention that Jensen, Eysenck and Whitney are Pioneer Fund grantees. Yes, it's relevant that this gives them a possible conflict of interest for reviewing the book, the ISAR source makes that point specifically, and I haven't tried to remove any of that. As such, your point that NPOV policy requires that we mention this possible conflict of interest has nothing to do with either the edit I made or the explanation I gave for it above.

I'm only disputing your belief that when we mention that these researchers are PF grantees, we need to add that the PF is "racist" and "white supremacist" cited to sources that have nothing to do with the book or its reviews. This specific thing (adding content from sources that don't discuss the article's subject) is what Maunus objected to when Miradre did the same, and what was extensively discussed and opposed in the article about Lynn's book. Think back to all of the other times you've insisted that we add disparaging asides about viewpoints that you disagreed with, cited to sources that weren't discussing the subject of wherever you added them. A recent example was when you demanded we include it for the Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies on IQ and the Wealth of Nations - would you say consensus supported you then? Or perhaps think further back, to when you were warned by EdJohnston in May for your behavior on these articles. I haven't been warned for anything. When this is what your history and mine is like on these articles, your suggestion that you consistently have consensus and policy on your side is odd.

But we don't have to argue again. I've explained above what the justification is for my edit, and your only counter-argument has been to a change that I'm not trying to make. Before you commented here I requested one other person's opinion, so let's just wait for additional input for now. And if your intention after that is to keep reverting without responding to the arguments being made, then this can just go back to AE.Boothello (talk) 06:57, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Let's start from the end of your comment. You finish up what you're saying with threats of "going back to AE" if I "keep reverting". So let's be clear here. 1) Last time you brought it to AE not much happened. And 2) I haven't reverted anything. You were reverted by one of the numerous many plentiful consensual people who happen to disagree with you. Let me repeat that, just in case you try to bring another frivolous request to AE: I haven't reverted anything. So don't pretend that I have.

Overall, starting off a discussion with a bunch of ill conceived threats and inaccurate "warnings" is not very conducive to, well, a having a discussion.

So try again, please, and this time, make your argument without trying to use the bully club. I'm listening. Volunteer Marek  07:09, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

The last (and only) time I brought you to AE, it resulted in a warning for you: here is the diff of EdJohnston notifying you of the discretionary sanctions in your user talk, and it's logged here in the "notifications" section of the arbitration case page. The fact that you're continuing to claim this request was "frivolous" (even though the admins at AE obviously disagreed with that) is a perfect demonstration of why this needs mentioning. It means that you still don't believe there was anything wrong with the behavior for which you were warned. The purpose of a warning is to try and get an editor to change the behavior they were warned for. If your reaction to being warned is to deny you ever did anything wrong, then clearly the warning didn't accomplish what it was meant to.

If you think your AE warning wasn't warranted, please come out and say so. On the other hand, if you accept that you need to avoid the behavior you were warned for if you stay involved in these articles, then you should acknowledge that the request I made which led to you being warned wasn't frivolous. If you don't believe you did anything that deserved a warning on these articles, that's definitely going to affect this discussion, so it's important to know if that's what we're dealing with here.

There's no justification for you demanding that I repeat the same points that I made in my first two posts here. They're right there for you to read them. The first post also wasn't threatening at all as it was directly mostly at Aprock rather than you. You can try to address what I said there, or not try to address it. It's up to you.Boothello (talk) 09:55, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Again, you're trying to threaten and bully your way here rather than actually make arguments or offer supporting evidence. In case you haven't noticed, the AE people issue "warnings" as a matter of standard procedure (in order to look like they're doing something), even in situations of frivolous requests - just in case. And you yourself were warned as well.

And yes, I deny I did anything wrong. You can try and dress it up how you want but at the end of the day I'm not the one who is trying to remove reliably sourced info from the text, whitewash fairly disreputable organizations or try and pass of sources which have been described as "racist" or "white supremacist" as non-controversial.

As concerns THIS specific matter, I'm still not quite sure what you are complaining/talking about. You accused me above of reverting you when I have done no such thing (in fact, have not made any edits to this article for awhile). Then you made some ill-conceived threats. When I pointed out in my comment above that I did not revert you, you amplified the threats and started going off on AE and warnings. At this point I'm just lost as to what the point of your comments is supposed to be. You're ... as far as I read it, threatening me with bringing ... "stuff" to AE again. Ok. What is this stuff? The fact that I didn't revert anything by you - is absence of reverts sanctionable? Or the fact that I responded to you? You're basically trying to refight some long standing fight you got against pretty well established consensus and this time around you seem to have mistaken me for Aprock or some other editor who regularly disagrees with you (as most do). And you're just taking out your frustration over the fact that the consensus does not agree with you on the talk page. I don't understand why I should be blamed for the fact that other people disagree with your POV, especially since that seems to be a pretty common phenomenon.

Honestly I don't have time for this. Is there something practical that we are discussing here? Volunteer Marek  02:50, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Please look at the list of notifications on the arbitration case page. Your name is the sixth listed there. Do you see my name? If I had received a formal warning about these articles, my name would be listed there. It's not. And thank you for clarifying that you reject EdJohnston's warning to you as invalid, this is something that will definitely matter if I need to report you again.

To be clear, I wasn't claiming that you reverted me on this article. When I said "if you keep reverting" I was referring to whether you'd repeat the same behavior on this article that you did in May on the main R&I article, such as making multiple attempts to remove the article's first sentence. [7] [8] (the second edit was you reinstating the edit when I reverted your first attempt). I'm not claiming that you're currently doing anything objectionable. I'm reacting to you suddenly showing up again on these articles, claiming that all of your earlier behavior was entirely justified, and arguing for most of the same things you were arguing for before. When I see this from you, it's impossible to not assume that it's going to lead to more of the same behavior you were warned for in May. Imagine how it would look to you if after Miradre's topic ban expires, his first few posts on these articles are to claim there was never anything wrong with the behavior for which he was banned. I'm sure it would give you the same impression.

Back to the point: In the discussion above, Maunus objected to using sources that don't discuss the subject of this article, and he removed several because "They do not treat the subject of this article." In the RFC about Lynn's book that I linked to in my first post here, consensus determined that in order to include criticism of an organization associated with the book, it must be cited to a source specifically criticizing the book because of that. The Falk, Tucker and Wroe sources all do not mention this article's subject. Therefore, according to either of these standards, these sources shouldn't be used in the article. Please remember that I am not trying to remove the ISAR article, or the information cited to it about Jensen, Eysenck and Whitney being PF grantees. I am only trying to remove the additional information that you added which is cited to sources discussing neither the book nor its reviews.

In any discussion, consensus is determined by who's able to justify their viewpoint using policy-based reasoning. I'm justifying my perspective about this in terms of policy, as well as in terms of consistency with what previously existing consensus has been on this article and other articles. You explained why the information about Jensen, Eysenck and Whitney being PF grantees shouldn't be removed, and I wasn't arguing that it should. You haven't provided a policy-based response to my actual point, and Aprock hasn't commented here at all. If I'm the only person here who's able to defend his position about this in terms of policy and consistency, then it's appropriate to go ahead with the change I'm suggesting.Boothello (talk) 05:02, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

So what you're saying is that you were threatening me over what I "might" do, not what I actually have done? How exactly is that conducive to a productive discussion? And even the "keep reverting" comment carries an obvious connotation that you were referring (falsely) to an ongoing activity. AND you're refusing to tone down your threats or drop them with this whole "this is something that will definitely matter if I need to report you again." Can you give me a reason why I should even bother responding to such belligerence and empty threats over stuff that hasn't happened?

The policy based response to your "actual point", which seems to be WP:IDONTLIKEIT, is simple: WP:NPOV. Volunteer Marek  21:34, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Boothello asked me to take a look at this dispute (it was a very neutral request and I wouldn't consider it canvassing). At a glance, the issue appears to be whether or not it is relevant to mention critical views of the Pioneer Fund when this article is about the book. Valencia 2010 and Tucker 2002 clearly place this book in the context of Pioneer Fund work. As such, I think it would be best to cite Valencia, Tucker and similar sources and to represent how they see this book as part of Pioneer's activities, rather than a general reference to criticisms of Pioneer, which is a little bit coatracky.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 08:35, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, I don't think the general criticism of PF is coatracky - rather it provides important information and context. It is obviously notable that most of the positive reviews came from Pioneer Fund grantees, especially given that Rushton heads the PF. "Little bit coatracky" doesn't strike me as a very strong reason to remove this relevant information. And yes, the sources do discuss the book and PF together.  Volunteer Marek  21:34, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm fine with including sources about the PF if they discuss this book. But could you be specific where the Tucker source discusses it? When I do a search inside Tucker's book for "Race, evolution and behavior" the only results are a few citations to the book. I know Tucker's book discusses Rushton in general, but I'm not aware of it actually discussing this book. In general, I think this article should be limited to sources that discuss Race, Evolution and Behavior rather than just discussing Rushton in general. If this article were to include sources that are just a general commentary on Rushton, there would be a lot more sources we need to add, both against Rushton and in favor.

The Valencia source does look relevant, though. If you have time, would you mind writing a neutrally-worded summary of what Valencia says about this book's relationship to the Pioneer Fund? I think you're trusted to do this in a way that's supported by policy.Boothello (talk) 21:16, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

First, to clear up the reference: Tucker 2002 talks about the book pp197ff. On google books p 197 itself is not shown, but from 198 the pages are available, and it's absolutely clear that Tucker is talking about this book (down to quotations from the book, and matching quotations "racial pornography" that one can find in Valencia, who cites Tucker).

Second, we actually have material from Valencia (p. 53) identifying as examples Jensen, Lynn and Michael Levin as Pioneer people who praised the book. We should add that to the lede to show it's not us putting two and two together.

Third, the reason why I think the addition was "coatracky" was because it looked coatracky. I agree that it informs the reader to let them know what kind of organisation Pioneer is, but we need to establish why we're mentioning it. Boothello wanted me to mock up a paragraph. This is purely a quick suggestion for the kind of thing that might be acceptable - a context setting for the book. The Howe book is published by Sage, so I'm presuming it passes the bare minimum of respectability. Please don't hold me to precise phrasing:

Valenica and Tucker have both identified the support that the Pioneer Fund gave both to the research and dissemination of the book as an example of its activities in supporting "scientific racism". Michael Howe identifies the book as part of a movement, begun in the 1990s, to promote a racial agenda in social policy.

Would this kind of thing be acceptable to both of you? Btw, the unsolicited, Pioneer-funded dissemination of the abridged copy using a mailing list not given for that purpose, looks pretty interesting. Tucker p.198-199 covers it. It probably should have a little section of its own.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 06:30, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

This seems like a acceptable compromise, I approve of it. I don't have access to the Howe source, but I trust your summary is accurate. However, I am starting to think that the "favorable reviews" section is not the best place for this Pioneer Fund discussion. It's currently mentioned there to show that Jensen, Eysenck and Whitney have a possible conflict of interest in reviewing the book. But for a more general discussion about the book's relationship to the PF, perhaps it's more relevant in another part of the article: maybe under "Professional opinions" or even "Unfavorable". What do you think?

I agree that the Howe source satisfies WP:RS, but it's also obviously attacking the concept of IQ in general. It's unfortunate how most of the sources used by this article (and the J. Philippe Rushton article) are strongly advocating a particular perspective in this manner. In any article on a controversial topic, it's best for as much as the article as possible to be based on neutral, detached sources that summarize the controversy, rather than sources that argue for a particular perspective. Do you know whether there are any sources like that about Rushton or this book that aren't already in use?

Also, I should point out that the article already has a section on the unsolicited mailing issue here. The lead section also already mentions that several (although not all) of the book's positive reviews were from PF grantees. If you think there's more that should be added to either section, you're welcome to add it.Boothello (talk) 01:57, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah - I missed that section below. The reason I missed it is that I had expected to find it in at the beginning of the "critical responses" section, as part of the negative reception of the book has been coloured by the mailing incident. That section alludes to it, but I now see that the story I felt had been left half told is finished below. I would have the mailing incident section at the bottom moved up and combined with the introduction to the "critical responses". It unites the publication story.

I mention the source for the statement that positive reviews came from Pioneer people because at the moment it's unsourced and might be seen as OR by someone coming to the page. Marek also mentioned it was clearly notable - which is true, but we have to be careful about drawing attention to patterns such as these without RS to raise them as important patterns.

I think that the reviews section is unbalanced in two ways. First of all, we don't really need quite so much of the blurby praise from supporters in so much detail. It doesn't tell us anything apart from the fact that they liked the book. Secondly, in the unfavourable reviews section we need to cut back on those long quotes, somehow. It's clear that the book received in general very poor reviews, of course, and we should reflect that. We kind of do now, but in a way that reads like people have been fighting over content.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 05:35, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Your suggestions all sound fine to me, with one reservation. If we cut back on the number of quotes in both the favorable and unfavorable section, I think we still should continue to make the distinction between the positive reviews from Pioneer Fund grantees and positive comments from people who are unconnected to the PF. Two examples of the latter currently mentioned in the article are Henry Harpending and Anthony Walsh. There's also a mildly positive review from Irving Louis Horowitz here. This was removed because Horowitz is associated with the book's publisher, but I think maybe the article should mention it.

I'm aware that the book's reception has overall been negative, but this article's history suggests that people really made an excessive effort to include every criticism of the book they could find. When I first came across this article a year ago, it contained a lot of criticism cited to self-published websites, to sources that criticize Rushton without mentioning the book, or in some cases sources that don't mention Rushton or the book at all. Eventually I removed most of the examples that were clearly original research or unreliable sources, but I think this article still isn't a balanced sampling of the book's reception. People formerly involved in this article have made sure to include every negative review that satisfied WP:RS (and a few that didn't), while nobody ever made an equivalent effort for the positive reviews.

So I definitely agree that the "critical responses" section should be reorganized. Would you be willing to take a crack at this? If you don't have the time I can try doing it myself, but it'll probably be a few days before I can get to it.Boothello (talk) 01:24, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I think the best course of action would be to allow Vsevolod to make his changes. On the other hand, if you are planning on making any major changes, then given our discussion above, I would ask that you bring these up here on the talk page first so that we can discuss them. Volunteer Marek  01:43, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I've added what I think is a sourced version of the connections with Pioneer. It needs expanding in the main body, but I haven't the time/energy today to do that.

The next thing that needs attention really has to be those reviews.VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 13:58, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Since your paragraph was intended to replace the coatracky wording in the "favorable reviews" section, I'll remove the previous wording now. You're welcomed to add some well-sourced information about this to the article body if you like, but I agree that dealing with the reviews should come first. Even if you won't have time for that right away, there's less potential for conflict if you could do it.Boothello (talk) 20:59, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Boothello, as I asked above, please let Vsevolod finish his rewrite and don't jump in with the usual removal of sourced information which you don't like. Volunteer Marek  23:25, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand why you need to revert even this. In the discussion above, Vsevelod explained that the new wording he added is a compromise between your desire to mention details about the Pioneer Fund and my desire to avoid WP:COATRACK material (which Vsevolod agrees that this is). The discussion was how to improve on your wording while still keeping the elements of it that you consider important. Yet now you demand that we not remove your original wording at all, so Vsevolod's new wording just gets added in addition to it. This is not a compromise.Boothello (talk) 02:32, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

His edit summary was Putting in first suggested changes. I'm not seeing how you think this gives you the go ahead to, once again, try and remove sourced information from the article. Let him make other suggested changes before trying to alter the article towards your preferred version, and make changes for which there is no consensus. I'm not demanding anything, I'm just asking that you don't try to push through changes to the article which have not been discussed or approved under the guise of the fact that someone else is rewriting the article. Volunteer Marek  02:45, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

If you both could wait another 12 hours I'll do some more. Apologies for slow progress - irl a bit busy. VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 16:28, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Revisions regarding pioneer fund and cutting the quote farm

OK - I've added a section on the Pioneer fund and the book, and removed the material regarding Pioneer from the favourable reviews section. I've moved the critical responses to be first, because quite obviously they are more representative of reactions to the book. Outside of the Pioneer circle, it seems that this book got rather ripped apart, and per NPOV we shouldn't pretend otherwise.

I've also had a go at the quote farm, summarising the views and cutting bits here and there. I would appreciate people checking to see if I've misrepresented the gist of the quotations I took out. The biggest thing I cut out was Wahlsten's ethical criticisms of Rushton as a scientist - partly to cut down on quotes, but also because it may be more appropriate for the page on Rushton.

I've not tackled the favourable reviews section because there seems to be two problems. First off is that some of them seem to be drawn directly from publicity material surrounding the book. I'm not sure that counts as RS. The second one is that as it stands, these reviews simply praise the book, rather than defend it. As such, these long quotes aren't justified - we could summarise what they say in a couple of sentences. Are there any more robust defences by people who are not Rushton?

The criminology section also needs looking at. How due is the material there?VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 05:51, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Most of the favorable reviews were originally published in journals and magazines (for example the Whitney review was published in Contemporary Psychology) so if you can find the original sources for these, they don't have to be cited to Rushton's website. Some of these quotes are also included in secondary sources such as the ISAR article, though if you're going to cite them to that you should also include some of ISAR's criticism.

Two reviews that go into a fair amount of detail defending the book are reviews from Harpending (currently in the article) and the one from Horowitz (which I linked to above). The quote from Harpending currently in the article doesn't accurately summarize all of what he has to say about this book. Harpending says that he isn't entirely convinced of Rushton's hypothesis, but also points out that regardless whether Rushton is right or wrong, it's valuable that Rushton is providing a framework for explaining understanding human differences that makes testable predictions. I also suggest looking at the Anthony Walsh source if you're looking for more robust defenses of Rushton.

You can modify the section on criminologists if you want, but I don't recommend removing it entirely. I was involved a little while ago in race and crime related articles, and Rushton's r/K theory gets a fair amount of coverage in all of the major textbooks on this topic. It seems to be taken more seriously in that field than in most other fields (Walsh is one example).

Finally, I recommend being careful what wording you use when describing the relation of the positive reviewers to the Pioneer Fund. A lot of sources argue that these people have a possible conflict of interest because they've been funded by the same organization that's funded Rushton's research, and it is important to mention that. But I don't think it's NPOV to suggest that the PF defines these people's identities, especially for people such as Hans Eysenck who is among the most-cited psychologists of the 20th century. As Maunus said here, the dynamic for most PF grantees is that they're driven to the PF because it's difficult to obtain funding for controversial research, not that the PF actually causes them to become hereditarians.

The main thing I disagree with is your choice of wording calling these people "Pioneer fund associates" because of how it implies that this is their defining characteristic. I'd recommend changing the first sentence of the "critical responses" section to say something like "According to Richard R. Valencia, the response to the first edition of Rushton's book was "overwhelmingly negative" with only a small number of supporters. Many of the supporters, such as Arthur Jensen, Michael Levin and Richard Lynn, have like Rushton done research supported by the Pioneer Fund."Boothello (talk) 07:01, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

OK - I take your point about being careful with wording. I'll use the word that Valencia uses - "grantees".

Regarding "Contemporary Psychology": what exactly is it/was it? This describes its successor as a full-text database with tens of thousands of incisive book and film reviews from 1956 to present. It provides users with insight on publications from a psychological perspective allowing them to choose relevant reading material, to select appropriate course materials, and more. Does that mean it's a peer-reviewed journal, or is it collecting these reviews from elsewhere? Does it discriminate based purely on quality, or also on notoriety? I can't say when I'd have a chance to look at the positive reviews section - to be honest it may not be for about a week. In going over the pioneer fund business have I not yet managed to get the two of you past your impasse? VsevolodKrolikov (talk) 12:32, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the Pioneer Fund business, I think your change to the wording of the "critical responses" section is an improvement. One other place that I'd recommend replacing the word "associate" with "grantee" is in this sentence of the lead: "The book received positive reviews by some researchers, many of whom were personally associated with Rushton and with the Pioneer Fund by which much of Rushton's research had been funded." I know this wording was added by Maunus not you, but I think the wording in the lead should be consistent with the body of the article.

I spent some time months ago trying to locate the original sources for some of the positive reviews that are quoted at the book's website, but didn't have much success. I think you're better at finding these sources than I am, so I'm afraid I don't think I'll be much help with determining the details about some of these sources. If you think the source for the Whitney review doesn't satisfy WP:RS, then I'd be okay with you removing it. I also wasn't able to figure out where the Jensen or Eysenck reviews were originally published. However, I think Jensen and Eysenck can probably be considered "established experts" on the topic of IQ testing per WP:SPS, so reviews by them could be considered reliable even if they're self-published.

Looking at the list of positive reviews at the book's website, two that stand out to me are the one by Gottfredson and the one by Snyderman. The one by Gottfredson was published in Politics and the Life Sciences, which is a peer-reviewed journal, and I think Linda Gottfredson is more respected than Glayde Whitney is. The review by Mark Snyderman was published in National Review, which I think is definitely a reliable source. Snyderman also isn't a PF grantee, and in light of the criticism of how many of the book's supporters are PF grantees, positive reviews probably count for more when they're from people who aren't. It might be best to replace the Whitney review with the reviews by Gottfredson and Snyderman. As I said earlier, past editors have made an effort to include every negative review they could find, but I don't think anyone's yet made a serious effort to identify and add the book's most notable positive reviews.71.232.157.202 (talk) 19:04, 15 November 2011 (UTC)