Talk:Race and intelligence

No source for the claim that the scientific consensus is that the differences are 0% genetic?

The first paragraph states "Today, the scientific consensus is that genetics does not explain differences in IQ test performance between racial groups, and that observed differences are therefore environmental in origin."

All the surveys of intelligence researchers seem to suggest otherwise, unless there are some that I'm not aware, in which case they should be cited as a source. What are the sources for the claim in the first paragraph? Seems like POV pushing.

It's also in contradiction with articles such as this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C7:EE82:7701:B053:9A89:8E8F:7F86 (talk) 00:02, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

This was discussed at great length last year, see [1]. The result of that RfC was that the view that some races are genetically superior to other races in intelligence is a fringe POV. There's no need to re-discuss this here. NightHeron (talk) 00:23, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Clearly a faulty result, the opinion of that Wikipedia admin is contradicted by mainstream academic sources. This issue needs to be examined at a higher level I think. Spork Wielder (talk) 07:44, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Spork Wielder, It was not the opinion of a single admin, but process that gathered opinions from many editors. This is pretty much the top of the pyramid as far as making content decisions on Wikipedia goes. Overruling it would require running another RFC, with similar levels of attendance, that goes the other way. That's not really likely to happen. MrOllie (talk) 13:19, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

It should also be noted that the result of the RfC was examined at two higher levels (AN and ArbCom), and was sustained. NightHeron (talk) 13:44, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

@NightHeron: Could you point me to the AN and ArbCom review of this RfC? I can only find the ArbCom review back in 2012 [2]. Thanks. Stonkaments (talk) 20:13, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

The AN closure review is here: [3]. I've had difficulty finding the ArbCom discussion, perhaps because no action was taken. A complaint to ArbCom was made by one of the editors who was unhappy with the closure of the RfC, and an IP-editor then joined in to attack me directly. That's the only time I've ever been brought into a discussion on ArbCom, and I'm not knowledgeable about how ArbCom works or why it's hard to find a record of that discussion. There is a reference to the ArbCom discussion and a link to the IP's attack on me here: [4]. Sorry I haven't been able to locate the full ArbCom discussion. NightHeron (talk) 21:25, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

The ArbCom request related to the RFC was filed as a clarification request on the old ArbCom case, such requests are archived on the talk page of the ArbCom case in question. ArbCom chose to do nothing (unsurprising, since reviewing content decisions is outside their mandate.) Reviewing the case did remind me that discretionary sanctions are authorized for this topic area, though. Continued warring against the RFC result could be handed with topic bans on WP:AE. MrOllie (talk) 21:54, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

• Did you read the article on the letter you linked? Most of the people who signed it were not experts in the field they were commenting on. The opinions of non-experts expressing opinions outside their area of expertise doesn't carry much weight. A similar strategy is frequently used to attack the science on climate change and even, in some cases, evolution - throwing together a list of scientists from unrelated fields who know nothing about the topic but who have strong feelings about it regardless; it's easy to find a ton of such names on any culture-war issue, but it certainly doesn't represent any sort of meaningful academic consensus. If you want some recent research rather than culture-war salvos from 30 years ago, see [5][6][7][8], in addition to many sources already in the article. --Aquillion (talk) 14:01, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Your own source contradicts the claim that there is a scientific consensus that genetics explain 0% of the variation. First of all it states that there is ongoing debate, not a consensus about the topic. Second of all, it states the following for example:

" When the between group variance attributable to trait-associated SNPs is compared to the observed phenotypic between-group variance, over 85% of the between-group variance in IQ is not attributable to additive genetic effects, where at most 4.7-8.7 IQ points could be attributed to such genetic effects"

How can a source that says at most 4.7 - 8.7 IQ points could be attributed to genetic effects be used to make the claim that there is consensus that the effect of genetics is 0? The paper says that there is a possibility that the contribution of environment is 0, but surely this is different from claiming there is a consensus its zero?

Here is another Wikipedia article in direct contradiction with the opening paragraph of this article.

2A00:23C7:EE82:7701:101A:AB08:BD42:6253 (talk) 14:41, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

What you're claiming does not make logical sense. (1) Of course there's still "controversy" about whether some races are genetically inferior to others, just as there is still controversy over whether anthropogenic climate change is just a fabrication of climate scientists, about whether evolution is a fabrication of atheists, about whether aliens landed at Roswell, and so on. Controversies persist because huge numbers of people persist in believing in fringe theories. (2) When researchers write that they have rigorously shown that the genetic effect could not be more than a few percent, directly contradicting what racialist hereditarians say, that does not imply that they believe that it is greater than zero percent. It just means that they cannot prove that it's zero percent. The inability to prove rigorously that a fringe theory is false is not evidence that it's true. We can't prove that Bigfoot doesn't exist. (3) The Wikipedia article you cite describes a book that supports the POV of the racialist hereditarians, but the fact that Wikipedia describes that book and the reactions to it does not imply that Wikipedia supports its POV. NightHeron (talk) 14:59, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

@NightHeron: You're of course absolutely correct here (except that "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" was an open letter published in the Wall Street Journal, not a book). But I'd argue that it's entirely okay at this point to ignore this IP range. Picking one very specific statement about the limits of one specific method and using it to misrepresent the overall argument of the cited piece is really beyond the kind of thing we need to take seriously, even if we assume good faith. See their repeated exercise of similar strategies above. Seems to me that it is quite enough, as you did in your initial reply here, to refer them to last year's RfC. Generalrelative (talk) 15:26, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

@Generalrelative: Sorry -- I didn't notice that the IP referred to two different Wikipedia articles, and my comment related only to the IP's second example.

The IP doesn't seem to understand the difference between something being notable enough to have an article and being mainstream. Of course all sorts of fringe people and books have Wikipedia pages.

You make a good point that, when confronted with illogical POV-pushing, it's best to resist getting drawn into repetitive arguments. NightHeron (talk) 18:11, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

@NightHeron: Aha, my apologies for the overzealous correction. I hadn't noticed the second wikilink. Generalrelative (talk) 18:35, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Except there is no similar debate in the scientific community about whether creationism is true or whether humans contribute to climate change. I find it unconvincing that the following professional bodies, from which the experts surveyed where randomly chosen, would be filled with "racialist hereditarians". It seems to me that Wikipedia has chosen that its editors are in a better position to know what the research says than the experts from the following institutions:

• American Educational Research Association (120)
• National Council on Measurement in Education (120)
• American Psychological Association:
• Development psychology division (120)
• Educational psychology division (120)
• Evaluation and Measurement division (120)
• School psychology division (120)
• Counseling psychology division (60)
• Industrial and organizational psychology division (60)
• Behavior Genetics Association (60)
• American Sociological Association (education) (60)
• Cognitive Science Society (60)

2A00:23C7:EE82:7701:101A:AB08:BD42:6253 (talk) 15:54, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree with the IP. Any claims that the scientific consensus believes genetics plays no role in intelligence differences are simply not supported by the evidence in the field.

I would like to remind editors that there is a spectrum of fringe theories, and arguments in favor of a genetic component to racial differences in intelligence are a clear Alternative theoretical formulation on the far end of the spectrum, rather than obvious pseudoscience like creationism on the other end. Continued attempts to compare a reasonable alternative theoretical formulation, with a well-documented line of inquiry and support in the mainstream scientific community, to something like creationism or Big Foot, strains the limits on assuming WP:GOODFAITH. Likewise for implying that the science is settled in this area of inquiry, and that the only controversy is due to "racialist hereditarians" akin to creationists or climate deniers. Such framing of the debate, combined with the ongoing refusal to allow any additions to the article that suggest a genetic component may be involved, strike me as exhibiting WP:OWNERSHIP over the article and POV pushing.

Edited to add: When a source says "over 85% of the between-group variance in IQ is not attributable to additive genetic effects", it is a BIG stretch to conclude that the author really believes the effect is 0% but just can't prove it. Notice the author himself concludes the evidence is "consistent with genetic differences contributing little [emphasis added] to the Black–White gap". If he really thought the evidence showed that genetics had no effect, why wouldn't he say that, rather than little?Stonkaments (talk) 22:38, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

1) It seems you have not understood the source you are quoting at all. The author is saying that even using the flawed methodology favored by hereditarians "over 85% of the between-group variance in IQ is not attributable to additive genetic effects". The author is very explicit about this, stating that because "the assumptions of this model violate core principles of modern population genetics (such as no gene-environment interplay, gene-gene interactions, and similar allelic effect across populations), there is little reason to expect the genetic contribution to be this large in reality."

2) After pointing out a whole host of questionable methodological assumptions underlying this "best case estimate for genetic contributions to group differences in cognitive performance", the author concludes that "the mean-expected-difference provided here [4.7-8.7 IQ points] is likely an overestimate and should be thought of as the maximum mean difference attributable to genetic variation due to genetic drift. It is also important to note that the direction of the mean difference could favor Africans or Europeans with equal likelihood." This may be too subtle an argument for someone trying to trawl the article for shreds of doubt as to the state of the scientific consensus, but for a scientist this is actually a pretty devastating take-down.

3) You ask If he really thought the evidence showed that genetics had no effect, why wouldn't he say that, rather than little? If you had read carefully you would have seen that the author actually does remark that his results are consistent with the possibility that "the genetic contribution to the IQ gap is zero". Because this is a scientific paper, (rather than, say, an editorial) one wouldn't expect him to state his opinion on the matter, no matter how strongly held, so the absence of such a statement shows nothing. What the author does emphasize is that his study "demonstrates that patterns of genetic differences between African and European populations in the 1000 Genomes Project dataset is consistent with neutral evolution and insignificant genetic contribution to the Black-white IQ gap. In other words, the patterns observed in this study can be explained without appealing to the core tenets of the hereditarian hypothesis." That really is scientist-speak for the hereditarian hypothesis is like belief in the existence of Bigfoot: not based on evidence.

4) The article already does discuss alternative theoretical formulations, as well as the reasons why the scientific mainstream rejects them. Presenting them as though they were valid would violate WP:FRINGE per the findings of the RfC. Generalrelative (talk) 23:37, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification, I admit I did only a cursory scan of the source based on the discussion above. Nevertheless, my point stands that it is flawed WP:OR to conclude that a best-case estimate of 15% genetic contribution "just means that they cannot prove that it's zero percent". This source is very clear that it is a take-down of the "hereditarian hypothesis", which he defines as "a significant portion of differences in cognitive performance between Black and White populations are caused by genetic differences due to natural selection". As the IP correctly pointed out, refuting this "hereditarian hypothesis" is different from the question of whether there is any genetic component.

Anyway, that was a minor side point. My larger concern is what I see as WP:OWNERSHIP and POV pushing by relegating the genetic component argument to the realm of pseudoscience like creationism and Big Foot. Per IP's second source, in response to the question, "Which of the following best characterizes your opinion of the heritability of black-white differences in IQ?", only 15% of experts who responded voted that the gap was "due entirely to environmental variation", vs. 45% who voted that it was a "product of genetic and environmental variation" (and 1% who said it was entirely due to genetic variation). Granted that book was written nearly 40 years ago, but shouldn't that give us pause? Can you honestly say that the article accurately portrays this level of dissent? Even the "History of the controversy" section gives the impression that the argument for a genetic component was always a fringe view held only by racists to justify slavery and other atrocities. Stonkaments (talk) 02:35, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for being amenable to clarification. But I was responding to you, not to the IP's 0% argument, which seems like a red herring to me. The actual language that appears in our article is: "the scientific consensus is that genetics does not explain differences in IQ test performance between racial groups", and this is very well sourced. Whether that means literally 0% or merely an "insignificant" contribution isn't necessary for us to parse because the language ("genetics does not explain") comes straight out of Nature.

As to my own beliefs, one of the recent reports cited by Aquillion above stated them quite well: "[T]he claims that genetics defines racial groups and makes them different, that IQ and cultural differences among racial groups are caused by genes, and that racial inequalities within and between nations are the inevitable outcome of long evolutionary processes are neither new nor supported by science (either old or new)." [9] I don't know enough about that IQ Controversy book to speculate on its merits –– but even if it did accurately capture the state of professional understanding 40 years ago that would hardly be relevant to this article. We have a separate article on the History of the race and intelligence controversy for just such information.

In any case, let's all please try to respect the way Wikipedia works, which includes respecting (and not continually relitigating) the results of high-profile RfCs like [10]. There is really no room for ambiguity in the result, and no reason to accuse others of violating policy for working to keep this and related articles in accord with that result. Generalrelative (talk) 03:37, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Do you have a link to the Nature article? I know it's been referenced before but I don't have it in front of me. I think it's important to look at the context of the article before concluding that there's no need to distinguish between no contribution and a >0% but insignificant contribution. I'll also note that Nature included the qualifier "an emerging consensus" that the Wikipedia article fails to reflect. The Wikipedia article also adds "and that observed differences are therefore environmental in origin", which I don't believe is reflected in the Nature article. Would it be better to simply quote Nature verbatim? And the Wikipedia article also states later on, "The current scientific consensus is that there is no evidence for a genetic component behind IQ differences between racial groups."--which is problematic because of the additional assertion of "no evidence", which I don't think is supported by the Nature article nor the RfC.

Surely the history of the debate is relevant to the article, hence why we have the "History of the controversy" section at all. Maybe it should rewritten as a WP:Summary style article, but as is it is very biased and misleading IMO.

I disagree that there is no ambiguity here. The fringe determination doesn't remove the responsibility to do the work and evaluate the evidence to determine to what extent there is a consensus that there is no genetic component, how widely held and what is the evidence in favor of the minority view that there is a small genetic component, etc. Can we agree that it's wrong to characterize a proposed genetic component as obvious pseudoscience akin to creationism? Stonkaments (talk) 05:04, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

I'll reply to your questions in turn but will not be continuing to debate these issues ad infinitum. My silence should not be confused with tacit agreement. I am simply tired of debating the same points again and again.

1) The Nature editorial from which this language comes is [11]. The quote is "There is an emerging consensus about racial and gender equality in genetic determinants of intelligence; most researchers, including ourselves, agree that genes do not explain between-group differences."

2) With regard to the statement "observed differences are therefore environmental in origin", this is WP:BLUE. There are only two options here (i.e. genetics or environment), and it is not WP:OR to make this clear to the reader. Further, in the body of the article we have four WP:RSs supporting the statement "Growing evidence indicates that environmental factors, not genetic ones, explain the racial IQ gap." The Nature editorial we rely on for framing our "genetics does not explain" language is far from our only source here; it's just explicit in a way that research articles typically cannot be.

3) Would it be better to simply quote Nature verbatim? No, this sentence in the lead summarizes a wide variety of WP:RSs. Again, we simply follow the phrasing of the Nature editorial because editorials are written in explicit, everyday language, and editorials in Nature are the pinnacle of the genre, at least as far as science is concerned.

4) With regard to the statement "The current scientific consensus is that there is no evidence for a genetic component behind IQ differences between racial groups", this is backed up by six WP:RSs. See especially Hunt and Mackintosh for a discussion of the lack of evidence. Both are reliable WP:SECONDARY sources, and neither of them can be accused of being overly harsh toward the hereditarians, yet both acknowledge the total lack of evidence to support the idea of a genetic link between race and intelligence.

5) We include only the most relevant information in the schematic History section in this article, saving all the nitty-gritty for History of the race and intelligence controversy. If the IQ Controversy book is not discussed at length in recent secondary or tertiary sources, it doesn't rise to the level of inclusion here. Your opinions about what is "biased" and "misleading" are not going to persuade anyone who doesn't already agree with your POV.

6) The RfC found: "There is consensus that the theory that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence is enough of a minority viewpoint in the scientific consensus that it falls under Wikipedia's definition of a fringe theory". That is indeed unambiguous. We do not promote WP:FRINGE on Wikipedia. We do report on its existence where appropriate, as we have done in this article (and more extensively in the History article). Pretending that there is a scientific rationale for believing that some genetic link exists between race and intelligence would clearly violate this finding, and no amount of hair-splitting will alter that.

7) I'm not sure about creationism, but I stand by my Bigfoot analogy. I think it captures well the persistence of belief in a thing about which there is absolutely no evidence but which some people want desperately to believe in anyway. The only difference is that believing in Bigfoot is harmless. Generalrelative (talk) 07:04, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

1) That Nature article is not an editorial. Holding it up as the definitive statement of the scientific consensus is wrong. It was the opinion of two researchers on one side of the debate; it was not written or endorsed by the editorial board. They also note that "plenty of scholars remain unpersuaded", and describe the hostile environment for any research that challenges the "politically correct" consensus. Here was the actual editorial in that issue[12].

2) It is indeed WP:OR. It is making the false assumption that the statement implies genes do not explain ANY between-group differences, when it could just as easily mean genes do not explain ALL between-group differences, genes do not explain any significant amount of between-group differences, or any number of other possibilities.

3) But we explicitly aren't following the source on a few important details. In addition to #2 above, the lead also fails to mention the authors describe an emerging consensus, and that a significant number of scholars disagree.

4) Thanks, I do plan to do a deeper dive on these sources (and others) concerning the claim that there is no evidence for a genetic component.

5) I disagree that this section adequately and neutrally summarizes the most relevant historical information. I think the fact that (assuming the source is correct) as recently as the 1980s the scientific consensus held that genetics played a role is highly relevant context for the article. I'll add that section to my to-do list.

6) "Pretending that there is a scientific rationale for believing that some genetic link exists between race and intelligence would clearly violate this finding"--this is simply not true, and is a misinterpretation of fringe, which says: "Alternative theoretical formulations generally tweak things on the frontiers of science, or deal with strong, puzzling evidence—which is difficult to explain away—in an effort to create a model that better explains reality." That completely contradicts your claim that fringe necessarily implies that there is no scientific rationale for the argument.

7) According to your source (and others provided by IP), the belief in a genetic component to the racial IQ gap has significant minority support in the mainstream academic community; this is simply not the case for Bigfoot or creationism. Additionally, the Nature commentary describes an environment that is overly hostile to research that dissents from the dominant view, which can "lead to a one-party science that squelches divergent views". I would suggest you reflect on that dynamic, and the motives for supporters of the dominant view to so fiercely attack any dissenting research, before casting aspersions on the motives of others. Stonkaments (talk) 15:58, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

This really needs administrative review because Generalrelative cherry picks and misrepresents a handful of sources as "consensus" in order to censor the view he doesn't like. I'm not sure someone who would claim "someone wrote it in Nature" makes something an uncontested fact should be editing Wikipedia. Spork Wielder (talk) 17:42, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

(ec) When an SPA comes in to make ridiculous accusations against a careful editor, in violation of WP:NPA, that tells us that this discussion has reached a dead end. As repeatedly mentioned above, Wikipedia editors arrived at a consensus in an RfC last year on Race and intelligence. If opponents of this consensus wish to continue bludgeoning, they should not be surprised if other editors decline to respond. NightHeron (talk) 18:45, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Your stonewalling based on the faulty RfC is what needs to be reviewed. Spork Wielder (talk) 07:28, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

I should clarify something about point #4 above. The sources for the statement "no evidence for a genetic component" support what that part of the article used to say, which is "no direct evidence". This wording was changed to the current one based on the outcome of the RFC, without changing what sources were cited. It was stated explicitly that the wording was changed "without having to cite a source for the change in wording." The quoted comment was referring to the lead section, but the same wording was subsequently copied to the body of the article, again without a change in sourcing.

See also the summary given by Literaturegeek here. At the time when this wording was changed last year, multiple editors were pointing out that the sources did not support the change, but the outcome of the RFC was understood to require the change regardless of whether it was an accurate summary of what sources said.

The original phrasing "no direct evidence" was a verbatim quote from the Kaplan source, while the Nisbett et al. paper says "no new direct evidence". The Mackintosh source says (p. 358): "In spite of claims to the contrary, there is remarkably little evidence that the difference is genetic in origin." This is somewhat close to what the article cites him to say, but "remarkably little" does not mean the same thing as "none". This is not just a matter of phrasing: when Mackintosh discusses the hereditarian argument based on brain volume (p. 339), he does not reject that argument as entirely invalid, but instead argues that it could only account for a very small portion of the difference in average test scores. So, Mackintosh's phrasing "little evidence" is in fact a more accurate summary of his overall position than "no evidence".

The new wording is an especially severe distortion of what the Hunt source says. Here is a quote from that source (pp. 434-435):

"Rushton and Jensen (and Lynn) are correct in saying that the 100% environmental hypothesis cannot be maintained. Nisbett's extreme statement [that the differences are 100% environmental] has virtually no chance of being true. However, the 100% environmental hypothesis is something of a stalking horse. Many researchers who are primarily in environmental differences associated with racial and ethnic differences in intelligence would not be at all perturbed by an ironclad demonstration that, say, 3% of the gap is due to genetic differences. The real debate is over the identity and size of genetic and environmental influences on group differences in intelligence, not the existence of either one."

When someone tried to remove the same "no evidence" wording cited to the same sources (Hunt, Mackintosh, Nisbett and Kaplan) from a different article, Generalrelative explained in this edit summary that the new wording is required by the RFC. So it isn't necessary for him to re-explain why consensus requires the new wording. But let's please not pretend this change is something other than what it was widely acknowledged to be at the time: it is based on the consensus of Wikipedia editors in the RFC, not based on the sources. Gardenofaleph (talk) 18:35, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for that additional context, that is very helpful. It seems clear to me when we have wording that is directly contradicted by the sources being defended by appealing to the RfC, something has gone very wrong in either the RfC itself, or the interpretation and implementation of that RfC (or both). Do you think we should revisit the RfC, or would it be more productive to examine how we can rewrite the text to stay consistent with the RfC while also aligning with the sources? Stonkaments (talk) 19:11, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

No "direct" evidence for a genetic component

Breaking this out in a new thread, as the previous discussion has stalled. I want to revisit this claim in the article: The current scientific consensus is that there is no evidence for a genetic component behind IQ differences between racial groups.

Gardenofaleph made a very strong argument that this sentence, as written, is wrong and is not supported by the sources cited[13]. Others have made similar arguments previously, as shown here[14].

For context, the original phrasing was "no direct evidence for a genetic component", but the word "direct" was removed as alleged MOS:WEASEL wording[15]. The fringe determination in the RfC[16] was also cited in support of removing the word "direct"[17], and the most recent revert said "not good wording, implies there is indirect evidence".[18]

As far as I can tell, no argument has been forwarded that no evidence for a genetic component is supported by the cited sources. To review, here is what the sources say:

• Hunt: "Nisbett's extreme statement [that the differences are 100% environmental] has virtually no chance of being true...The real debate is over the identity and size of genetic and environmental influences on group differences in intelligence, not the existence of either one."
• Mackintosh: "In spite of claims to the contrary, there is remarkably little evidence that the difference is genetic in origin."
• Kaplan: "no direct evidence" (original phrasing was a verbatim quote from the Kaplan source)
• Nisbett et al: "no new direct evidence"

Furthermore, later in the Wikipedia article another quote from Hunt says, in part, "The argument for genetic differences has been carried forward largely by circumstantial evidence."

So we have all of these highly reliable sources referencing some degree of indirect or circumstantial evidence for a genetic component, including Hunt which is arguably the most reliable tertiary source available. It seems clear the current claim of "no evidence" is false and unsupported by the sources; therefore I propose reverting to the original wording of "no direct evidence", or a similar alternative. I don't find the argument that this would somehow violate the fringe RfC to be convincing. And if it truly is the case where we acknowledge the wording is wrong but determine that it would contravene the RfC to fix it, I would remind editors of WP:IGNORE: If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. Stonkaments (talk) 19:44, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Maybe I could be convinced we need a modifying word somewhere in that sentence, but I don't think 'evidence' is the right thing to hang it on, because implying a category of indirect or circumstantial evidence leaves open how much (or how little) of it there really is. How about 'The current scientific consensus is that there is no evidence for a significant genetic component behind IQ differences between racial groups.'? - MrOllie (talk) 19:54, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

That is a fair point. I would support that change. Stonkaments (talk) 19:57, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

@MrOllie: Thank you for suggesting that wording. I'd also support that change provided that some words are added clarifying that there is also no scientific evidence which racial group would be the beneficiary of any very small genetic difference in intelligence. This was stated in the source quoted above by Generalrelative: "It is also important to note that the direction of the mean difference could favor Africans or Europeans with equal likelihood." Many people would read a statement that there is no "significant" genetic contribution to the black/white IQ gap to mean that there might be a slight amount of genetic inferiority of blacks compared to whites. As the source says, it is equally likely that whites would turn out to be inferior to blacks. Since a genetic component in group IQ differences is a matter of speculation, one can equally speculate that, if whites had been treated over the last 350 years as badly as blacks have been and if blacks had enjoyed the privileges that whites did, then the black-over-white IQ gap would be more than 15 points. In other words, the wording should clearly indicate that there is no scientific evidence of any race being genetically superior or inferior in intelligence to any other race. NightHeron (talk) 20:39, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

A possible sentence to add: "Nor is there any scientific evidence as to whether people of African descent or European descent would be favored by any very small genetic difference in intelligence that might exist." NightHeron (talk) 21:09, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

References

The framing of this debate as "genetic inferiority" is tiring, inflammatory, and arguably disruptive; speculation about a black-over-white IQ gap of greater than 15 points is unfounded and similarly unproductive. As for the claim that "the direction of the mean difference could favor Africans or Europeans with equal likelihood", one primary source should not be relied upon to the exclusion of the many more reliable secondary and tertiary sources that do not support such a claim. Stonkaments (talk) 21:18, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

@Stonkaments: Please stop your personal attacks against me, which violate WP:NPA. I am not being disruptive or inflammatory. In the context of discussing a black-white IQ gap, it is highly misleading to suggest that there might be a very small genetic explanation, since that suggests that a between-group difference, if there is one, would necessarily favor whites. In other words, it reinforces implicit biases against black people. It's not "inflammatory" to acknowledge this reality.

Why are you taking offense and reacting with such hostility to the notion that a racial difference in intelligence could favor blacks? NightHeron (talk) 21:48, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

@MrOllie: @NightHeron: For what it's worth, I oppose these proposed changes in wording, though I recognize that they come from a genuinely collaborative place. As I stated above, pretending that there is a scientific rationale for believing that some genetic link exists between race and intelligence would clearly violate the RfC consensus, as well as the cited sources. The OP is welcome to try to defend their interpretation of WP:IGNORE before WP:AE, but I suspect that the verdict is more likely to be WP:NOTHERE. Generalrelative (talk) 22:09, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

@NightHeron: I agree wholeheartedly that we need to take special care to avoid any misleading or ambiguous claims in this article. I believe the best way to do that is to be thorough and meticulous in presenting well-sourced information in a clear and neutral way. My specific objection to adding the additional sentence "Nor is there any scientific evidence as to whether people of African descent or European descent would be favored..." is with regards to sourcing and WP:UNDUE—that claim is based solely on one primary source, while we have a number of other more reliable source that do not support that claim. Adding that would make the article worse, not better. I feel that the wording MrOllie proposed is careful and neutral as-is.

@Generalrelative: Can you explain how the proposed change in wording to "no evidence for a significant genetic component" would violate the cited sources? As I mentioned in the OP, I have never seen that argument made, and the excerpts provided by Gardenofaleph indicate the change would in fact align more closely with the sources. Stonkaments (talk) 22:28, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

(ec)@Generalrelative: I think you're right. Stonkaments' responding to my attempt at a new wording by personally attacking me -- like the SPA's ridiculous attacks on you earlier -- shows that their only purpose here is to try to overturn the consensus and promote racialist hereditarianism. Their repeated violations of WP:NPA show that it was naive on my part to hope that this could end amicably.

As you have pointed out, we're under no obligation to relitigate the RfC in response to the refusal of some people to accept consensus. All of the claims they are making have been made and refuted many times before. NightHeron (talk) 22:43, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

The most important concerns on this article ought to be WP:Verifiability, and the prohibition against misrepresenting sources. Editorial consensus shouldn't be able to overrule both a basic Wikipedia policy, and one of the administrative remedies affecting this article.

MrOllie's proposed change is an improvement over the current wording, but the only source that it summarizes accurately is Mackintosh. The wording "no evidence for a significant genetic component" seems to be making a statement about the possible size of a genetic contribution, and saying that it must be small if it exists. Mackintosh discusses evidence for a very small genetic contribution in his comments about brain volume, and later concludes that there's "remarkably little evidence" for a genetic contribution. But the other sources say that that the evidence for a genetic contribution is indirect or circumstantial, without taking a position about its possible size. Hunt is very critical of all arguments that the genetic contribution is a specific size (including the argument that it's a size of zero), and describes these arguments (p. 436) as "overly precise statements on either the pro-genetic or pro-environmental side". So I think MrOllie's proposal is not consistent with what most of these sources say, and the original wording "no direct evidence" is the most accurate summary of the sources.

If MrOllie's proposal is the only one that can gain consensus, though, don't count me as opposing it. It's only consistent with one of the four sources, but I guess that's better than contradicting all four of them Gardenofaleph (talk) 00:27, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Speculation is not science. Scientists cannot prove that the genetic contribution is zero. Nor can they prove that it's nonzero. Nor can they prove that, if it's small but nonzero, then it is positive. Nor that it's negative. (Positive means that if it weren't for environment blacks would still score below whites on average; negative means that they'd score higher.) This is the point that's made in the source that Aquillion, Generalrelative, and I have cited. It's a recent reliable source, published in the journal of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. Nothing in recent reliable sources contradicts that.

Please keep in mind that the RfC is settled. Wikipedia works by consensus, which means that attempting to continually relitigate settled questions is viewed as unconstructive. NightHeron (talk) 01:03, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

To put the same point another way: A measurement is never a single value, it is always a confidence interval. If the genetic effect is zero, what we measure will always be "somewhere between minus epsilon1 and plus epsilon2", with epsilon1 and epsilon2 being positive numbers. All that happens is that the epsilons will get smaller over time. And the people who believe in a non-zero effect will always be able to say "you did not refute the non-zero assumption". This is logically related to Popper's "possibility of refutation" criterion for science: following Popper, the statement "the value is zero" is science because it is refutable by getting an interval which does not contain zero, while the statement "the value is not zero" is not science because it is not refutable. The burden of proof lies with the non-zero crowd, and until they get an interval without zero in it, science says the effect is zero. The same logic applies to lots of other pseudosciences too. The effect of homeopathy is also measured to be "zero plus/minus epsilon". --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:30, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Now do the environmental effect to see how meaningless this is. Spork Wielder (talk) 12:01, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Are you saying that there is no evidence that Blacks are poorer than whites and that they have poorer access to education in the US? That must mean that someone here must have mastered the feat of editing a parallel universe's Wikipedia. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:27, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

None of the studies show there is a consensus that genetics play no role. The study you cited says that the evidence the study uses is compatible with the claim, just as it's compatible with genetics explaining up to 15%. The scientific evidence is compatible with genetics playing a role, which is also what all the (imperfect) surveys of experts suggests is their opinion. I think the wording should be rearticulated as something akin to "the scientific consensus is that the existing evidence is compatible with environmental factors explaining the differences". Any sources cited don't (and as Nighheron said, cannot) rule out genetics playing a role.

There seems to be a misunderstanding where some editors think that "is compatible with environmental explanations" is thought to mean "is incompatible with genetic explanations".

78.16.177.15 (talk) 01:40, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

@NightHeron: Could you clarify what is the point you're trying to make about speculation vs science and what can be proven? None of the proposed changes to the wording are making any claims as to the level of proof that has been presented, and WP:Verifiability and WP:DUE apply to reliable sources across the board–not only to what science has proven–so I fail to see how those distinctions are relevant here. That said, I could probably get on board with a mention of the uncertainty involved, including Hunt's argument criticizing all estimates of the size of the genetic contribution as "overly preciese", if you think that would be important context. Stonkaments (talk) 01:49, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Please see the above comment by Hob Gadling, who explained this better than I've been able to. NightHeron (talk) 10:49, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. But I have a correction and two additions: "science says the effect is zero" should actually be "science says the effect is either zero or so close to zero that nobody has been able to measure it". Please note that this implies that those who believe it is different from zero do not do so because of solid empirical evidence but because of errors such as overgeneralization, cherry picking, wishful thinking, or for ideological reasons. Here another rule of thumb comes into play: Occam's Razor. If you can explain what we see without the assumption that there is an effect, you should. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:42, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

The garbled attempts at scientific reasoning have no place here, since it is not the place for us to state our opinions. Nevertheless I can't help but laugh at those saying science proves things, or that an observation must be zero, when the explanation of the observation is the point under discussion, and then getting Occam's Razor exactly backwards by positing mysterious unidentified "environmental variables" to reduce an observed difference to zero. I guess this is why we look at reliable sources, not the intellectual mediocrities and social justice activists that edit Wikipedia. Spork Wielder (talk) 11:57, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the environmental variables, see my response above.

Those are things scientists understand and apply implicitly. The purpose of explaining them was to make some of the editors understand the parts they are missing when scientific sources are quoted, but it was not to be expected that all of the targets would grasp the concept. I'll just say WP:CIR and drop it.

Reliable sources have been quoted above. It is your choice not to accept what they are saying. Wikipedia's choice is different from yours. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:27, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Hunt says: "Nisbett's extreme statement [that the differences are 100% environmental] has virtually no chance of being true...The real debate is over the identity and size of genetic and environmental influences on group differences in intelligence, not the existence of either one." This is arguably the most reliable tertiary source that we have, and presents a clear and direct claim that is as close to a refutation of your argument about the confidence interval as you'll get. Just because he leaves open the remotest of possibilities of the effect being zero (as you say, science can never prove with 100% certainty), per Occam's Razor, the best-guess estimate is a >0% genetic component. However, that claim is covered by the fringe RfC and I am not seeking to re-litigate or overturn that here.

But the disputed sentence in the article makes an even stronger claim, saying there is no evidence for a genetic component. This is not a claim about the confidence interval, and I have yet to see anyone make an argument that it is an accurate representation of the cited sources (Generalrelative made the claim but did not elaborate an argument[19]). This is a problem, especially because there is a special restriction on this page about misrepresenting sources.[20]

refutation of your argument about the confidence interval Wrong. What I wrote was just a further explanation of what NightHeron said, and it is all very basic science and independent of the specific race-and-intelligence example. Hunt's opinion about what Nisbett said does not invalidate it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:01, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Oh, and yes, "no evidence for a genetic component" is a claim about the confidence interval, namely that it contains the value of zero. If it did not, that would constitute evidence for a genetic component. Can we stop this please? --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:04, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

(ec) Actually Hunt makes exactly the same point as Hob Gadling has above. Scientists cannot prove that the genetic contribution to the IQ gap is zero because, as Hunt helpfully points out, "doing so would require proving the null hypothesis and, as any good statistics instructor will tell you, that is a logical impossibility." (Hunt p.447) Hereditiarians, on the other hand, could indeed have proved that it was non-zero if that were the case, and have consistently failed to do so. This is the meaning of the Hunt quote: "Of course, tomorrow afternoon genetic mechanisms producing racial and ethnic differences in intelligence might be discovered, but there have been a lot of investigations, and tomorrow has not come for quite some time now."

Hunt's opinion about Nisbett's view, on the other hand, is just an opinion. And indeed, it conflicts directly with Mackintosh's opinion that "One could reasonably defend Nisbett's argument that the gap was entirely environmental in origin." (Mackintosh p.344)

One more point before I drop this thread: Hunt and Mackintosh are indeed reliable sources on the state of understanding 10 years ago among psychometiricians because that was their area of professional competence. When they speak about genetics specifically (and today's consensus) however, we should take their views with a grain of salt. If there is anyone who is truly open to persuasion that the hereditarian view is wrong (who is not already convinced by the mountain of evidence already presented), I would suggest reading "Race, genetics and pseudoscience: an explainer" by four prominent geneticists –– Ewan Birney, Jennifer Raff, Adam Rutherford, and Aylwyn Scally: [21] I won't be debating this. I know that it's been attacked by know-nothings on all the usual white-supremacist websites. I am also aware that it's a blog post. While blog posts by established experts are sometimes allowed in articles (per WP:RSSELF), I am not arguing that this source be included in this article. I am legitimately trying to inform those who do not yet know why the overwhelming majority of geneticists believe what they do about this topic. Please consider this my last straw of patience for the current crowd of race/IQ truthers. After this my engagement with specious argumentation will be limited to repeating the results of the RfC and reporting sanctionable behavior if necessary. Generalrelative (talk) 15:11, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

@Hob Gadling: Stop what, exactly? You are ok with the fact that the article's claim of no evidence for a genetic component is contradicted by the cited sources? Would you care to address that? I think that is the whole crux of the matter here. Stonkaments (talk) 15:16, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

It's amazing that these prominent geneticists identified the genes responsible for intelligence and found they were uniformly distributed among races. That's way more advanced the state of research I was aware of. Truly stunning and groundbreaking work that ends the debate. Nobel prize winning stuff. One only wonders why they didn't publish their data and methods, rather than asserting it on a blog. Spork Wielder (talk) 09:00, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

This is a truly ludicrous mischaracterization of what the geneticists say in the source. Among other things, they explain that socially constructed notions of race do not correspond to genetic divisions between populations, and so the concept of race is not useful in genetics. As before on the R&I talk page, this SPA's comments contain plenty of sarcasm and nothing of value. NightHeron (talk) 10:43, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

That's exactly what they say. "The genetic variants that are most strongly associated with IQ in Europeans are no more population-specific than any other trait. To put it bluntly, the same genetic variants associated with purportedly higher IQ in Europeans are also present in Africans, and have not emerged, or been obviously selected for, in recent evolutionary history outside Africa." What I find especially fascinating, is that despite their strawman dismissal of racial categories, they're happy to use those very categories to state Europeans and Africans have the same IQ variants. Which is it? Unsurprising that this confused nonsense is unpublished. Their "refutation" of the race concept is particularly funny: "If samples are collected based on pre-defined groupings, it’s entirely unsurprising that the analyses of these samples will return results that identify such groupings. This does not tell us that such taxonomies are inherent in human biology." Are these prominent geneticists unaware of the HGDP? Spork Wielder (talk) 11:38, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, they are. And they are also aware of the GIGO principle, of Reification, the Law of small numbers, the Texas sharpshooter fallacy and the Spurious relationship. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:08, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Am I supposed to waste my time explaining why literally none of these things apply? Spork Wielder (talk) 13:46, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

It is, as Generalrelative just explained, contradicted not by "the cited sources" but by an opinion in one of the cited sources. You people do not understand how scientists talk and what they mean when they do, nor can you tell the difference between a statement of fact and an opinion. We all tried to explain it but seem to have failed. I don't think any further explanations will do anything to change the situation. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:24, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Can you point to just one example (of either fact or opinion) from any of the cited sources that supports the assertion that there is no evidence of a genetic component? Stonkaments (talk) 15:37, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Stonkaments, That is what Hunt is communicating, that there probably is some difference (as there would be between any two randomly selected groups), but it is within the observational error range of the methods we have. This is scientist for 'no evidence' the same way that 'works as well as placebo' is medical researcher for 'it doesn't do anything'. MrOllie (talk) 16:18, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't agree with that interpretation at all. It seems to me he's saying that it's abundantly clear (based on circumstantial evidence) that there is some genetic component, it's just a question of how much. Stonkaments (talk) 16:29, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Hob Galding, have you looked at the Hunt source itself, and not just the excerpts from it that various editors are posting here? Hunt definitely is not making the argument that you think he is. He gives a detailed summary of the arguments made by hereditarians, and then says "In general, I find their arguments not so much wrong as vastly overstated. But overstatement does not mean that there is no point to them." This is the context in which Hunt goes on to say, "Rushton and Jensen (and Lynn) are correct in saying that the 100% environmental hypothesis cannot be maintained." So in context, it is very clear that Hunt is saying that the hereditarians have presented enough evidence to demonstrate that the differences are not 100% environmental, but not enough evidence to support Rushton and Jensen's 80% genetic "default hypothesis" (which Hunt calls an "excessively precise statement").

As I said in my earlier post, I understand that consensus is opposed to changing this part of the article, or any of the other articles that the same wording cited to the same sources has been copied to. But I'd like everyone at least be aware of the reality of what's happening on these articles, which is that this is a case of consensus superseding the Verifiability policy. Gardenofaleph (talk) 23:36, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

I only know the few parts that have been quoted here, by any party, but nothing from those quotes convinces me that "no evidence" is wrong. What Hunt says still just sounds like his opinion.

Is there evidence that homeopathy works? No. Well, actually yes, if you insist on answering the question literally, but it is really crappy evidence that does not count because it is the kind of evidence you would expect to be found even if the effect does not exist: bad studies without control groups, small studies with very little power, irreproducible statistical flukes. So, effectively, there is no evidence. If the effect exists, it is so tiny that nobody could reliably reproduce it. Still, there are people who are convinced that it must exist, and continue looking for it.

The race-and-intelligence situation looks very much the same to me: If the effect exists, it is so tiny that nobody could reliably reproduce it. Still, there are people who are convinced that it must exist, and continue looking for it. Hunt is one of them. That is how it looks to me from the quotes.

There are many studies that find that IQs are determined mainly by genetic factors. People who understand statistics will know that such results are not natural laws. They are properties of data sets. If you only use university students in your research, or only US citizens, or only US citizens with specific properties, your results will be determined by the distribution of the parameters you are looking at within your data set. If the environmental conditions of your subjects do not vary a lot - e.g. if you do not look at any people who live in actual slums - the influence of environmental factors will be lower than if you did. If you want to interpret data from another source, which includes people living in slums, you cannot just extrapolate from the more-homogenous-populations studies.

But not everyone who uses statistics understands this. Many people, even scientists, view statistics as a tedious tool, a couple of recipes you follow without having to understand what exactly you are doing. Even published scientific studies are sometimes full of rookie mistakes. Statistical significance is one of the things used by thousands of scientists who do not understand what it really means - see Replication crisis. I think those IQs-are-determined-by-genetic-factors studies are misleading many such math-averse scientists into taking their results for real effects instead of just properties of data sets. Hunt sounds like one of those. Unless he gives actual results from valid studies with the right scope, "no evidence" seems right. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:12, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Hrm... Hunt was the president of the International Society for Intelligence Research, which has historically been at least amicable to the hereditarian view (ie. willing to have its more out-there advocates on the editorial board of its journal). And just reading the section of his book being cited here I see several eyebrow-raising things - he devotes an entire aside to James Watson's controversial comments, where he defends them as factually accurate on every point.^Note _{(Including the bit where Watson said His hope is that everyone is equal, but “people who have had to deal with black employees find that this is not true.” Hunt helpfully notes that this is an accurate statement because "As references in this chapter have shown, in the United States the work performance evaluations of African Americans are, on the average, lower than the evaluations received by white workers. This is true for both objective and subjective evaluations. The difference is much less than the difference in test score averages." I couldn't resist including that as a footnote.)} He also gives massive amounts of focus to Rushton, Jensen, and Lynn. I would also point out that while he presents himself as a neutral observer who refuses to take sides, [22] describes him as a heriditarian, which pretty closely lines up with his career, expressed sympathies, and, of course, stated opinions. Like... obviously scholars exist who support the hereditarian position, but that doesn't make it the mainstream consensus. Hunt doesn't present what he's saying as the mainstream consensus, he just says it's what he believes. And it is fairly notable that even the scholars supporting that perspective tend to cite the same small number of people, which doesn't exactly support the argument that their views represent a broad scientific consensus. --Aquillion (talk) 14:24, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

I guess the peer reviewed literature on the heritability of intelligence is written by people who just don't understand. Luckily we have Wikipedia editor Hob Gadling to show us the truth. Spork Wielder (talk) 15:43, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Not "the peer reviewed literature", only part of it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:06, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

So where does this leave us? To summarize:

• The current wording, no evidence for a genetic component, fails WP:VERIFIABILITY and misrepresents the cited sources, all of which reference some level of indirect or circumstantial evidence for a genetic component. The only argument made that the sources do in fact support the current wording came from (in my opinion) a misinterpretation of Hunt's views tied to a tangential discussion on confidence intervals around the null hypothesis, speculation vs. science, and facts vs. opinions.
• It looks like there is strong opposition to the original wording, no direct evidence of a genetic component, despite being the most faithful representation of the cited sources.
• There has been some qualified support for no evidence of a significant genetic component. While still not an entirely accurate representation of the sources, it would be an improvement.

Can we work towards building consensus on how to incorporate a change to no evidence of a significant genetic component? What additional context or qualifying statements, if any, would be needed to go along with that? Stonkaments (talk) 15:47, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

That summary is obviously biased. The truth of the matter is that the discussion has (1) two editors plus one sarcastic SPA who dislike the conclusion of the RfC on race and intelligence and want to undermine it by changes in wording, and (2) five editors who have been arguing against this. A consensus already exists on Wikipedia, and it does not support introducing weasle-words that suggest that there's scientific evidence that some races are genetically inferior to others. NightHeron (talk) 16:02, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Can we really vote to ignore core policies? Neat. Spork Wielder (talk) 16:12, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

I moved your response where it belongs: after the contribution it responded to. But consensus is not a vote, and your interpretation of the source is just your interpretation while the consensus has a different one. So, your problem, not ours. --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:27, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Why should "Hunt's views" be relevant? Science is about results, not about views. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:06, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

The views in Hunt's Intelligence are relevant because:

1. It is being cited as a source (and his views are being used to defend the current wording, when in fact they argue against it)
2. It is considered a reliable tertiary source, which Wikipedia policy notes "can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics" and "may be helpful in evaluating due weight"[23]. Stonkaments (talk) 16:20, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

It is a tertiary source for the stuff Hunt gets from other sources and summarizes, but a primary source for Hunt's own view about it. Which part of "Science is about results, not about views" did you not understand? --Hob Gadling (talk) 10:27, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

I have one last proposal that I hope might be amenable to everyone, before I bring this to dispute resolution. Would there be support for simply removing the sentence entirely? The sentence that follows, Growing evidence indicates that environmental factors, not genetic ones, explain the racial IQ gap, seems to provide an adequate summary of that section and the current scientific consensus, without the issues of verifiability and misrepresenting sources that have been brought up here. Stonkaments (talk) 01:22, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

I oppose deleting that sentence, which correctly represents current scientific consensus. I would also urge you to drop the stick rather than taking a matter to dispute resolution that was already litigated in great detail in the RfC and elsewhere, including this talk page. NightHeron (talk) 02:33, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

I also oppose deleting that sentence, and I reject the premise that it misrepresents the sources. - MrOllie (talk) 03:30, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

As pointed out in earlier discussion, there is no source that states the existence of such consensus, and all the surveys of experts suggest this is not the case. Even if these surveys like this are imperfect, the burden of proof is upon those claiming consensus is 100% environmental to provide better sources with more rigorous methodology which they have been unable to do. Indeed there seems to be inability to cite any source even with less rigorous methodology that would suggest such consensus exists. It seems people mistake "compatible with entirely environmental explanation" as "incompatible with any genetic factor". I support changing the sentence to something that mentions that something along the lines of "the differences are compatible with environmental explanations".

2001:14BB:70:C4C5:A041:ECC7:B828:6037 (talk) 08:54, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

You're mixing up two very different statements. No one is saying that the scientific evidence is "incompatible with any genetic factor", which would be the same as saying that science has proved that it's zero. Neither is science incompatible with the existence of Bigfoot.

You, too, please drop the stick. NightHeron (talk) 10:09, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

So then we agree that at least some experts think the evidence is at least compatible with a genetic factor? It's kind of an academic question, because we can all see that some do. Anyway, this is clearly going nowhere and needs to go to dispute resolution. Spork Wielder (talk) 12:22, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

You still do not get it. All experts think that, and they will all continue to think it forever, because there is no possible evidential situation which would be incompatible with it. That is trivially true and does not need to be mentioned in the article.

Yes, this is going nowhere because it already has gone somewhere and is there now. The dispute resolution has already happened and does not need to happen again. That is why, as NightHeron said, you should drop the stick. EOD as far as I am concerned. --Hob Gadling (talk) 13:27, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

All you people are doing is putting words in the mouths of experts. Those who say genetics is a likely factor, are not saying "it's impossible to mathematically prove the genetic effect is exactly zero". That's just something you made up. Spork Wielder (talk) 13:58, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

I have raised this issue here: Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard#Race_and_IQ:_"no_evidence"_for_genetic_component? Stonkaments (talk) 22:47, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Addition of a "current consensus" section

Given this articles extensive cyclic argumentation history, I was wondering if it would be worth implementing a "current consensus" section on this talk page akin to the one at Talk:Donald_Trump#Current_consensus to provide a handy link to notable past discussions and consensuses. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:43, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

No source

The talk page header here says: "In particular, analyses or conclusions not already published in reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy are not appropriate for inclusion in articles." That "observed differences are therefore environmental in origin" (quote from the lede of this Wikipedia article) is not published in any of the sources of the article. I think that it should be removed --Angillo (talk) 03:45, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Please see WP:LEADCITE EvergreenFir (talk) 04:11, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Why? --Angillo (talk) 04:17, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Really? Because it explains how the lead lacks citations because it summarizes the body of the article? EvergreenFir (talk) 04:44, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I forgot to add: This claim in the head of the article is not repeated in its body. --Angillo (talk) 13:02, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Angillo, Sure it is, in a few places. " A 2015 study found that environmental factors (namely, family income, maternal education, maternal verbal ability/knowledge, learning materials in the home, parenting factors, child birth order, and child birth weight) accounted for the black–white gap in cognitive ability test scores.", "Growing evidence indicates that environmental factors, not genetic ones, explain the racial IQ gap.", "They consider the entire IQ gap to be explained by the environmental factors that have thus far been demonstrated to influence it, and Mackintosh finds this view to be reasonable." Remember, the lead summarizes, it doesn't repeat sentences verbatim. MrOllie (talk) 13:20, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi MrOllie.

A fuller quote from the article lede is:

Today, the scientific consensus is [...] and that observed differences [in IQ test performance between racial groups] are therefore environmental in origin.

Re your first quote from the body (A 2015 study found that environmental factors (namely, family income, maternal education, maternal verbal ability/knowledge, learning materials in the home, parenting factors, child birth order, and child birth weight) accounted for the black–white gap in cognitive ability test scores.):

That sentence from the article body is about what a study found about the black-white gap, whereas the claim in the lede is about scientific consensus about racial IQ test gaps in general.

That differences between blacks and whites are environmental doesn't mean that differences between e.g. asians and blacks are environmental.

And a study found in the body is a weaker claim than scientific consensus in the lede.

Re your second quote from the body (Growing evidence indicates that environmental factors, not genetic ones, explain the racial IQ gap.):

Growing evidence indicates in the body is different from scientific consensus in the lede.

Re your third quote from the body (They consider the entire IQ gap to be explained by the environmental factors that have thus far been demonstrated to influence it, and Mackintosh finds this view to be reasonable.):

This is qualified by They consider (they being Mackintosh and his coauthors), so is not making a claim about scientific consensus, whereas the lede is making such a claim.

In summary, the claim in the lede doesn't conform to the article body, should be removed, and can be readded when it conforms to the article body by replacing scientific consensus with Growing evidence indicates. --Angillo (talk) 13:57, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Right before the "growing evidence indicates" sentence is "The current scientific consensus is that there is no evidence for a genetic component behind IQ differences between racial groups." Both are cited heavily, and together would indicate that current scientific consensus is indeed that any "IQ gap" is due to environmental conditions (unless there are other factors you would like to propose?).

As MrOllie pointed out, the lead doesn't have to exactly match the source sentences from the rest of the article. To me, this seems just like a semantic choice of how to summarize, not a contradiction of the articles' citations. I do agree that if there was a literature review citation that would better support the claim, instead of individual studies. (For reference, there have been several RFCs on this topic.) —Wingedserif (talk) 14:17, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

When you say "[...] together would indicate that current scientific consensus is [...]" this seems to be drawing, to again quote the talk page header, one of those "conclusions not already published in reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" and are not allowed to be included in Wikipedia. I would suggest removing the claim from the article until this criteria is met.--Angillo (talk) 14:58, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Bollocks and Wikilawyering. It's close enough. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:05, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm afraid you've simply re-stated your original argument, rather than answered mine. If we followed your line of reasoning, paraphrasing would be impossible. —Wingedserif (talk) 16:05, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Wingedserif, you seem to be saying that because "The current scientific consensus is that there is no evidence for a genetic component behind IQ differences between racial groups." therefore there must be an additional scientific consensus that IQ differences between racial groups are due to environment. The "therefore" is the problem, if that's indeed what you are saying. --Angillo (talk) 16:13, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

I said it could be supported better, but both statements are supported (it is not genetic; it is environmental). If you have non-fringe sources that indicate scientific consensus attributes intelligence to some other factor, please provide them. —Wingedserif (talk) 16:31, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

• Please note: The OP is re-initiating the same discussion that just took place on this talk-page (see directly above). The OP of that earlier thread then took the same issue to WP:NOR/N (see [24]), where the admin who closed it determined that the consensus was that the complaint has no merit. It is not constructive to repeatedly raise the same issue in several places because of refusal to accept the outcome of earlier discussions; see WP:FORUMSHOPPING. NightHeron (talk) 15:07, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Nope, the admin who closed it said it wasn't a question of NOR but a question of editors cherry picking their preferred sources, which I agree with. So it needs to go to the appropriate board WP:FTN. Frog Tamer (talk) 14:23, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Also note that the OP is an SPA with no contributions before today or to any other article. NightHeron (talk) 15:12, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

I have been emailed that Angillo is a blatant sock-puppet of white supremacist Mikemikev, this is the same user who has had hundreds of sock-puppets going back years commenting on this very talk-page and the Race (human categorization) one [25]. I filed an SPI against this user about a month ago. I suspect Spork Wielder and Angillo are the same person. This Mikemikev character has a history of arguing about race on throwaway accounts. The behavior matches some of his recent blocked socks [26]. I think an SPI needs to be filed. Psychologist Guy (talk) 00:33, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Meanwhile, just ignore this troll per WP:Deny recognition. He gets off on wind-ups.--John Maynard Friedman (talk) 00:47, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

WHERE IS THE DATA? Somewhere in the middle the article states that blacks have an average IQ of 1.1 standard deviations below the average IQ of whites. WHY IS THE NO TABLE showing this data (based on OVER 6 million data points!)? Do we need to bend to political correctness and hide the data in one sentence that most people will not be able to interpret. SAD — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.201.67.162 (talk) 23:30, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Is this article biased towards nurture / environmental explanations because of ideological / humanistic reasons?

The Humanistic (as well Christian) viewpoint is that all humans are equal. Evolution doesn't care about this ideal though. Just as different environments can cause different selective pressures towards pigmentation, it can also cause differences in intelligence. It IS plausible to theorise that there are differences between average intelligence of races, and I feel like this article dismissed this possiblity form the beginning not for scientific, but for ideological reasons. There ARE adoption studies out there who argue race is a genetic factor in intelligence.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Abacus1997 (talk • contribs)

No. See extensive discussions on the science above and in the talk page archives. - MrOllie (talk) 16:56, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree with MrOllie. There's significant consensus on excluding that fringe viewpoint, and we'd need a lot more than unsourced hypothesizing to overturn that. —Wingedserif (talk) 17:02, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes of course, but the clique of ethnomarxist editors that control the page have a "consensus" (among each other) to ignore core policy and lie that the hereditarian view is "fringe". These lies are supported right at the top of the Wikipedia administration. So don't waste your time, here, or with Wikipedia. Frog Tamer (talk) 06:21, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Hilariously their "consensus" is based on removing even opposing comments.[27] Apparently describing what's plainly happening is "imagining" things and a "personal attack". Go figure. Frog Tamer (talk) 06:26, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

And of course my comments were removed by one of the ethnomarxist clique because apparently describing editorial bias is now a "personal attack". Naming a group of editors editing in a non-neutral manner to describe the direction of their bias is absolutely not a personal attack. Frog Tamer (talk) 11:08, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, in the same way the young-earth creationism article is protected by a clique of Lyellists, the Heliocentrism article is protected by a clique of Galileists, the Earth article is protected by a clique of round-earthers and so on. And the admins are also part of those conspiracies. Woe, woe, woe. Sad!

Meanwhile, in the real world, those articles are based on reliable sources, and those who oppose them have nothing on their hands but conspiracy theories. See above: See extensive discussions on the science above and in the talk page archives. --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:35, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

And in this "extensive discussion" we see the same embarrassingly absurd arguments and irrelevant false analogies you just made. Frog Tamer (talk) 11:51, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Ethnomarxist? ethnonationalist is not good, so they say, so is it made exponentially worse by marxist theory? ~ cygnis insignis 13:41, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps; or maybe we're straining to hear the dulcet tones of a dog whistle. —Wingedserif (talk) 13:52, 16 April 2021 (UTC)