Talk:Race and intelligence

Article Tags

This article has multiple tags - it will probably always have them given the nature of the subject matter - but would it be a plan to systematically work to remove these as far as possible?

• The Section on Brain Size has an undue weight tag
• The Section on Regression towards the mean has an undue weight tag
• The Section on Genetics of Race and Intelligence has an undue weight tag
• The Section on Evolutionary theories has an undue weight tag
• The Section on Genetic Arguments" has a neutrality disputed tag
• The Section on Validity of Race and IQ has an undue weight tag
• The Section on History of Debate has this section should be summary of main article on History of Race and Intelligence Controversy
• The Article is tagged with: does not represent a worldview; undue weight; factual accuracy disputed; neutrality disputed; unbalanced.

Are there any arguments to support, say, that the section on Regression towards the mean has been given undue weight? It consists of two sentences. The first outlines Jensen and Rushton's position. The second refutes it. Is this really undue weight?FiachraByrne (talk) 23:30, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, the current history section gives way too much attention to the modern debate. We have exactly two paragraphs on the widespread eugenics research in the early 20th Century, followed by seven paragraphs about more recent research. I think trimming the latter down would get things closer to where we would want to be on that.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 00:08, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. As a start I'd advocate moving the section on the Pioneer Fund into the Ethics of research section. Also I'd like to put in headers for the history section to divide pre- and post-WWII. I'd probably remove/move the third and second last paragraphs as well FiachraByrne (talk) 00:24, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

I think we should keep in mind there's already a separate History of the race and intelligence controversy article. It would be best if we could minimize the amount of content we duplicate that's already in another article. Zeromus1 (talk) 01:03, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

The article is certainly in a dire state. Most of the undue tags relate to the over weight given to Rushton, Jensen, et al, scientists who have failed to build mainstream consensus for their conclusions despite decades of research. Any move to address these weight problems would be welcomed. aprock (talk) 02:25, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, they can hardly be excluded, regardless of consensus, due to their importance to the debate. I think you could say - based on many statements in research papers - that the consensus amongst geneticists is that racial difference in IQ is not accounted for by genetics.

In regard to Jensen, although it's a pretty crude measure, we could weight the relative importance of his articles at least based upon how often they've been cited. So, using Scopus (author search for Jensen, Arthur and searched within results for race and intellligence), the following are his top cited articles and therefore the ones which should be given greatest weight:

• Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive Ability (2005) 108 Cites
• Race, Social Class and Ability Patterns on the WISC-R (1982) 35 Cites
• Race and Sex Difference in Head Size and IQ (1994) 26 Cites
• Forward and Backward Digit Span Interaction with Race and IQ: Predictions from Jensen's Theory (1975) 19 Cites
• Occupation and Income Related to Psychometric G (2001) 15 Cites
• The Totality of Available Evidence Shows the Race IQ Still Remains (2006) 13 Cites
• African-White IQ Differences from Zimbabwe on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised are mainly on the G Factor (2003) 11 cites
• Comments on Correlations of IQ with Skin Color and Geographic-Demographic Variables (2006) 9 Cites
• Wanted: More Race Realism, Less Moralistic Fallacy (2005) 9 Cites
• James Watson's Most Inconvenient Truth: Race Realism and the Moralistic Fallacy (2008) 8 Cites
• Adoption Data and Two G Related Hypotheses (1997) 8 Cites
• An Examination of Culture Bias in the Wonderlic Test (1977) 6 Cites
• Personality and Scholastic Achievement in Three Ethnic Groups (1973) 6 Cites
• The Rise and Fall of the Flynn Effect as a Reason to Expect a Narrowing of Black-White IQ (2010) 5 Cites
• Galton's Legacy to Research on Intelligence (2002) 5 Cites
• Interaction of Level I and Level II Abilities with Race and Socioeconomic Status (1974) 5 Cites
• The Theory of Intelligence and its Measurement (2011) 4 Cites
• Do Age-Group Differences on Mental Tests Imitate Racial Differences (2003) 3 Cites

According to Scopus, the remainder of his articles receive 0 cites. Obviously, there are some historical articles that are not returned which should probably be included. Also, one should weigh these results in terms of the recency of publication as 2011 article has had less time to accumulate citations than an article from 1974. FiachraByrne (talk) 09:08, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Those citation numbers are not even remotely plausible. Check out Google Scholar, each of those has been cited many more times. "How Much Can We Boost..." probably has more citations than any other article in the history of IQ research. His books, especially Bias in Mental Testing and The g Factor, are also some of the most frequently cited monographs in the history of the discipline. The latter, in particular, is the sine qua non of contemporary research on cognitive abilities, and is cited numerous times in each issue of various specialist journals.

There is zero evidence for the claim that "the consensus amongst geneticists is that racial difference in IQ is not accounted for by genetics." Moreover, the question is not strictly in the purview of geneticists per se, but rather psychometricians and behavior geneticists (who may not be geneticists by training). It's difficult to establish what the mainstream view on the causes of racial differences is because it's such a taboo subject. The best evidence we have is from the anonymous 1980s survey of hundreds of behavioral scientists by Snyderman and Rothman. It showed that the modal view of experts on just about all questions was the same as Jensen's. For example, only 15% said that the black-white IQ gap was entirely due to non-genetic factors, whereas 45% said that both genetic and non-genetic factors are involved. The 1994 Mainstream Science on Intelligence statement, signed by 52 experts, is also completely in line with Jensen's views. There is no reason to believe that the views of experts on this topic have radically changed since the 1980s and 1990s.

The best answer we have is that currently there is no consensus on the causes of racial disparities in IQ (cf. Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns). In this article, we should present all prominent viewpoints and arguments that have been published in reliable sources. Those include the views of hereditarians like Jensen and Rushton as well as those of their opponents.--Victor Chmara (talk) 09:45, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Google Scholar is not an appropriate source to track citations. No plausible published study would use it as a metric. I'm looking specifically at articles not at books as these would require a different measurement instrument. I've also explicitly stated that this may not be only database from which to draw citations - although I'd struggle to think of a better one for this field. The statement that there is a consensus amongst geneticists that the IQ gap is not attributable to genetic differences between races is derived from review articles/op ed. pieces that make that contention such as the Ceci and Williams article - there are more and you could argue that there doing that to insulate the field from critique. Obviously, such a statement would need more support and would not necessarily apply to different disciplines. The 1980 survey you refer is too old to hold any contemporary relevance and likewise with the statement on 'mainstream science' from the early 1990s. They are historically relevant but that's it. It would be better to cite a recent review article giving an overview of the field and positions within it. FiachraByrne (talk) 10:39, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Based on the Scopus database (and there may be more relevant databases), a search for race and intelligence in all fields returns 14,130 articles. Limiting these results to review articles with key words for race and intelligence returned 203 articles. Based on a reading of article abstracts, not all of these were directly relevant (articles on anti-social behaviour, etc). So based on citations, the most relevant articles are:

• Racial and ethnic stratification in educational achievement and attainment (2003) 188 Citations

• Neurobiology of intelligence: Science and ethics (2004) 134 Citations

• Race as biology is fiction, racism as a social problem is real: anthropological and historical perspectives on the social construction of race (2005) 108 Cites

• Cognitive Skills and Noncognitive Traits and Behaviors in Stratification Processes (2003) 105 cites

• Genetics of brain structure and intelligence (2005) 93 Cites (not sure how relevant race is for this article)

• Human Abilities (1998) 81 Cites (not sure how relevant race is for this article)

• Assessing genetic contributions to phenotypic differences among 'racial' and 'ethnic' groups (2004) 68 cites

• Intelligence and socioeconomic success: A meta-analytic review of longitudinal research (2007) 62 cites (not sure of relevance for race)

• The Bell Curve: On race, social class, and epidemiologic research (1996) 52 Cites

• Four-Year Review of the Use of Race and Ethnicity in Epidemiologic and Public Health Research (2004) 43 Cites (not sure of relevance for intelligence)

• Cross-cultural effects on IQ test performance: A review and preliminary normative indications on WAIS-III test performance (2004) 36 cites

• The secular rise in IQ: Giving heterosis a closer look (2004) 36 cites

• The status of the race concept in physical anthropology (1998) 33 cites (not sure of relevance for intelligence)

• Deconstructing race and ethnicity: Implications for measurement of health outcomes (2006) 30 cites

• Genes, race, and psychology in the genome era: An introduction (2005) 22 Cites

• Myopia, intelligence, and the expanding human neocortex: Behavioral influences and evolutionary implications (1999) 21 cites (not sure of relevance for race)

• Whole brain size and general mental ability: A review (2009) 18 cites

• On models and muddles of heritability (1997) 14 cites

• Is the demise of IQ interpretation justified? A response to special issue authors (2007) 12 cites (questionable inclusion)

• Psychopathic personality and racial/ethnic differences reconsidered: A reply to Lynn (2002) (2003) 11 cites

• Size matters: A review and new analyses of racial differences in cranial capacity and intelligence that refute Kamin and Omari (2000) 10 cites

• Genetic aspects of intelligence (1975) 10 cites

• Whole brain size and general mental ability: a review. (2009) 9 cites

• Hereditarian scientific fallacies (1997) 9 cites

• Some history of heredity-vs-environment, genetic inferiority at Harvard(?), and The (incredible) Bell Curve (1997) 8 cites

• Genetic differences and school readiness (2005) 7 cites

• Intelligence: new findings and theoretical developments (2012) 5 cites (no abstract for this)

• Intelligence (I.J. Deary) 2012 (5 cites) (not sure of relevance to race)

• Personality psychology: Current state and future prospects | [Persönlichkeitspsychologie: Stand und perspektiven] (2005) 5 cites (not sure of relevance to race)

These results are obviously imperfect. First, they should really be broken up by discipline. Further, not every article included really meets the criteria of a review article. Textbooks should also be included - we just need a plausible system to weigh their relative influence. I think the idea of using some kind of metric is sound, however, as opinions on this topic are extremely subjective. FiachraByrne (talk) 10:45, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

I should state that the Scopus database only goes back to 1973, ... incorrect, but not sure why earlier articles for Jensen were not showing up ... hence my observation that we'd also have to include some historical articles. FiachraByrne (talk) 10:55, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

What you say about Google Scholar is not true. Quoting from the Wiki article: Some searchers consider Google Scholar of comparable quality and utility to commercial databases.[16][17] The reviews recognize that its "cited by" feature in particular poses serious competition to Scopus and ISI Web of Knowledge, although, in a study limited to the biomedical field, the citation information found in Google Scholar have found to be sometimes inadequate, and less often updated.[18] Your limitation to articles is also arbitrary, because lots of research on race & IQ is published in multiple-author books and monographs. Scopus appears to be rather unreliable. For example, it reports six citations for "Personality and Scholastic Achievement in Three Ethnic Groups", but Google Scholar reports 20, most of them articles. Moreover, the Scopus list does not include some of Jensen's most important and highly cited articles, such as his 1982 Behavioral and Brain Sciences target article on Spearman's hypothesis. In short, Scopus is not reliable here and even if it were, citation counts are not the way to judge what sources are relevant in Wikipedia.

Your argument that a survey from 1984 and a consensus statement from 1994 are only of historical interest makes no sense. Both and especially the 1994 statement are frequently cited in newer research. If you were right, then surely the 1996 APA report, the 1994 AAA statement, and the 1996 AAPA statement, all prominently cited in the article, are also outdated. The idea that sources have some clear expiration dates leads to absurdity.

Ceci and Williams's self-serving claims about consensus are unsupported by anything other than their own words. There are other recent sources, such as Earl Hunt's new textbook Human Intelligence (2011), which hold that the causes of the racial gaps are currently unknown and that strong claims in either direction are not supported by evidence.--Victor Chmara (talk) 11:29, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

The limitation to articles is based upon what is searchable through Scopus. I didn't imply that books should be excluded, just that I wasn't sure what metric to use to weigh them. The purpose of the citation index is to get a feel for the actual distribution of influence and the relative weight of sources in the field. It might be a useful guide but it would not be a solely determining instrument for an article's inclusion or exclusion. Some of your points on Google Scholar are valid. It returns a reasonable result of an individual author. Trying to search for sources through key words is another matter. In the latter instance, it becomes unworkable. Thus, if I search for "race AND intelligence" it returns 759,000 results. Now, this is many more results than Scopus or an equivalent database would provide but they are ranked based upon the frequency of the appearance of those terms in the title or text rather than on citations or some other measure. Nor can I do much to order those search returns. It would take days to go through it whereas I can establish a similar result through Scopus in minutes. Scopus may return less results but I can be reasonably confident that recent work in established journals will be returned. Now, it may then be feasible to turn to Google Scholar and search for individual items or authors but I'd suggest that we use Scopus or Web of Science first. Scopus is widely used in Academia even if it imperfect. I don't think it's plausible to say its unreliable. The use of citation counts is relevant because it's the only way to arbitrate the 'undue' tags that have proliferated throughout the article.

Ceci and William's statement may not be true and it may be self-serving. I don't know. I do know that we're using their other statements to support contentions in the lede. I also think they have a reasonable claim to speak for their field in op-ed piece. However, if such a statement were to be inserted it would need support from other sources. FiachraByrne (talk) 12:35, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Ceci and Williams's claim about "an emerging consensus" is self-serving, unverifiable, and contradicted by other sources, but their other arguments do not suffer from such limitations. Establishing what the scientific consensus is in a field where expressing certain viewpoints leads to public condemnation, academic ostracism, and, in some countries, police investigations, is obviously a tricky matter. Snyderman and Rothman's survey showed that the views of scientists, when surveyed anonymously, on controversial topics are often at great variance with what the media and individual scientists consider to be the mainstream view.

There is a Wikipedia guideline on identifying reliable sources, so there's no legitimate rationale for coming up with standards for reliable sources that apply only to this article. A good way of finding relevant sources is to look at prominent books and reviews that deal with race and intelligence. For example, there are very few accounts that do not give a prominent place to Arthur Jensen's views.--Victor Chmara (talk) 13:09, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

As I've previously said the validity of the Ceci and Williams claim would depend on the addition of other sources.

As to the other matter, it's not issue of whether sources are reliable but as to whether they've been given undue prominence. I'm suggesting that we could use a citation index to help us determine that. FiachraByrne (talk) 15:11, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

I think we also should look into whether this article gives undue prominence to Richard Nisbett. Google scholar shows 160 citations to Intelligence and How to Get It, while The g Factor is cited 2,181 times. Yet in this article there are 13 citations to Nisbett's book, and only three citations to The g Factor. I haven't examined Scopus, but based on Google scholar Nisbett's book seems to be given far more weight than it should. Zeromus1 (talk) 15:44, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

I think that that is supportable. Bear in mind, however, that Nisbett's article was only published in 2009 - therefore it's averaging 40 citations a year and is highly cited. Jensen's article is averaging 145 citations, however. That doesn’t mean Jensen’s article is supported and this is a crude measure, etc, but Jensen's publication is obviously important to the topic even if a lot of those citations are criticisms. But I'd like to get an overview of the field first. Also, what I’d really like to identify is a highly cited review publication or textbook that addresses the issue of race and intelligence.

I got a piece of free software called Publish or Perish which makes the Google Scholar results sortable etc. The other thing I've been wondering is what kind of weight we can give to Google Scholar's ranking? Does it provide a better result than simple citation counting. There's a decent evaluation of its ranking algorithm here if anyone's interested. It obviously over-rates publication titles rather than text for searches. There are lists below of some searches I did through Google Scholar that were sorted using Publish or Perish. Some of these publications or more or less relevant and I’m not suggesting that all of these publications or that only these publications should be included. It’s just an indication of some important publications that address the subject. Now doing a basic search for Race AND IQ through Google Scholar we get the following results:

Publications Google Scholar ranks the highest (three publications edited out as irrelevant):

• RC Lewontin, ‘Race and Intelligence’ (1970) in Race and IQ. Cites 151 Cites per year 3.51

• S Scarr-Salapatek, ‘Race, social class and IQ’ (1971) in Science. Cites 216 Cites per year 5.14

• A. Montagu, Race and IQ (2011). Cites 63 Cites per year 31.5

• AR Jensen, RA Figueroa, ‘Forward and backward digit span interaction with race and IQ: Predictions from Jensen’s theory’ (1975), Journal of Educational Psychology. Cites 85 Cites per year 2.24

• C Lane, ‘The Tainted Sources of ‘The Bell Curve’ (1999) in Race and IQ. Cites 58 Cites per year 4.14

• U Bronfenbrenner, ‘Nature with nurture: a reinterpretation of the evidence’ (1975) in Race and IQ. Cites 30 Cites per year 0.79

• J. Tizzard, ‘Race and IQ: The Limits of Probability’ (1975) in Journal of Ethnicity and Migration. Cites 34 Cites per year 0.84

• WF Bodmer, ‘Race and IQ: The Genetic Background’ (1972) in Race Culture and Intelligence. Cites 25 Cites per year 0.61

• RS Cooper, ‘Molecular Genetics as Deus ex Machina’ (2005) in American Psychologist. Cites 29 Cites per year 3.63

• U Bronfenbrenner, ‘Is early intervention effective? Some studies of early education in familial and extrafamilial settings’ (1975) in Race and IQ. Cites 17 Cites per year 0.45

• S. Rose, ‘Darwin 200: Should scientists study race and IQ? NO: Science and society do not benefit’ (2009) in Nature. Cites 19 Cites per year 4.75

• JR Flynn, ‘Race and IQ: Jensen’s Case Refuted’ (1987) in Arthur Jensen: Consensus and … Cites 25 Cites per year 0.96

• P Watson, ‘How Race Affects IQ’ (1970) in New Society. Cites 20 Cites per year 0.47

• S Ceci, WM Williams, ‘Darwin 200: Should Scientists Study Race and IQ? Yes: The Scientific Truth Must Be Pursued (2009) in Nature. Cites 13 Cites per year 3.25

• T Sowell, ‘Race and IQ Reconsidered’ (1978) in Essays and Data on America … Cites 17 Cites per year 0.49

• SE Luria, ‘What can biologists solve’ (1975) in Race and IQ. Cites 13 Cites per year 0.34

• A Montagu, ‘Intelligence, IQ, and Race’ (1999) in Race and IQ. Cites 1 Cites per year 0.07

• H McGary, Race and Social Justice (1998). Cites 45 Cites per year 3

• JP Rushton, AR Jensen, ‘Race and IQ: A Theory-based review of the research in Richard Nisbett’s Intelligence and How to get …’ (2010) in The Open Psychology Journal. Cites 16 Cites per year 5.33

• C Senna, The Fallacy of IQ (1973). Cites 13 Cites per year 0.33

Most cited, total (several publications edited out as irrelevant)

• D Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ (2006). Cites 13738 Cites per year 1962.57 Google Rank 237

• AR Jensen, How much can we boost IQ and scholastic achievement (1969) in Harvard Educational Review. Cites 3397 Cites per year 77.20 Google Rank 276

• B Hart, TR Risley, Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children (1995). Cites 3125 Cites per year Google Rank 208

• PJ Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights (1991). Cites 2742 Cites per year 124.64 Google Rank 398

• C Jencks, M Phillips, The Black-White Test Score Gap (1998). Cites 2218 Cites per year 147.87 Google Rank 81

• AR Jensen, The G Factor: The Science of Mental Ability (1998). Cites 2181 Cites per year 145.40 Google Rank 48

• A Lareau, Unequal Childhoods: Class, race and family life (2011). Cites 1994 Cites per year 997 Google Rank 417

• I Lopez, White by Law 10th Anniversary Edition: The Legal Construction of Race (2006). Cites 1686 Cites per year 240.86 Google Rank 487

• U Neisser, G Boodoo, TJ … ‘Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns’ (1996) in American … Cites 1592 Cites per year 93.65 Google Rank 344

• JR Flynn, ‘Massive IQ gains in 14 nations: What IQ tests really measure (1987) in Psychological Bulletin. Cites 1300 Cites per year 50 Google Rank 185

• LJ Kamin, The Science and Politics of IQ (1974). Cites 1253 Cites per year 32.13

• TF Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea in America (1997). Cites 962 Cites per year 60.13 Google Rank 485

• AA Summers, BL Wolfe, ‘Do Schools Make a Difference’ (1977) in The American Economic Review. Cites 838 Cites per year 23.28 Google Rank 82

• A Montagu, Man’s most dangerous myth: the fallacy of race (1997). Cites 816 Cites per year 51 Google Rank 286

• JR Flynn, The Mean IQ of Americans: Massive Gains 1932 to 1978 (1984) in Psychological Bulletin. Cites 757 Cites per year 26.1 Google Rank 158

• AJ Sameroff, R Seifer, A … ‘Stability of intelligence from preschool to adolescence: The influence of social and family risk factors (2008) in Child … Cites 595 Cites per year 119 Google Rank 663

• RJ Gregory, Psychological Testing: History, Principles and Applications (2004). Cites 582 Cites per year 64.67 Google Rank 285

• E Turkheimer, A Haley … ‘Socioeconomic status modifies heritability of IQ in young children’ (2003) in Psychological … Cites 573 Cites per year 57.3 Google Rank 83

• AL Reiss, MT Abrams, H… ‘Brain development, gender and IQ in children: A volumetric imaging study (1996) in Brain. Cites 564 Cites per year 33.18 Google Rank 597

• SJ Ceci, ‘How much does schooling influence general intelligence and its cognitive components? A reassessment … (1991) in Developmental Psychology. Cites 520 Cites per year 23.64 Google Rank 66

Most cited per year (this list unedited)

• D Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ (2006). Cites 13738 Cites per year 1962.57 Google Rank 237

• A Lareau, Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race and Family Life (2011). Cites 1994 Cites per year 997 Google Rank 417

• S Walker, C Spohn, MD … ‘ The Color of Justice: Race, Ethnicity and Crime in America (2011). Cites 513 Cites per year 256.5 Google Rank 174

• I Lopez, White by Law 10th Anniversary Edition: The legal construction of race (2006). Cites 1686 Cites per year 240.86 Google Rank 487

• B Hart, TR Risley, Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children (1995). Cites 3125 Cites per year 173.61 Google Rank 208

• C Jencks, M Phillips, The Black-White Test Score Gap (1998). Cites 2218 Cites per year 147.87 Google Rank 81

• AR Jensen, The G Factor: The Science of Mental Ability (1998). Cites 2181 Cites per year 145.4 Google Rank 48

• PJ Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights (1991). Cites 2742 Cites per year 124.64 Google Rank 398

• AJ Sameroff, R Seifer, A … ‘Stability of Intelligence from preschool to adolescence: The influence of social and family risk factors (2008) in Child … Cites 595 Cites per year 119 Google Rank 663

• U Neisser, G Boodoo, TJ … Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns (1996) America … Cites 1592 Cites per year 93.65 Google Rank 344

• JG Altonji, RM Blank, Race and Gender in the Labor Market (1999) in Handbook of Labor Economics. Cites 1253 Cites per year 89.5 Google Rank 562

• AR Jensen, ‘How much can we boost IQ and scholastic achievement’ (1969) in Harvard Educational Review. Cites 3397 Cites per year 77.2 Google Rank 276

• RJ Gregory, Psychological Testing: History, principles and applications (2004). Cites 582 Cites per year 64.67 Google Rank 285

• D Cole, No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System (2000). Cites 818 Cites per year 62.92 Google Rank 609

• T Duster, Backdoor to Eugenics (2003). Cites 615 Cites per year 61.5 Google Rank 748

• TF Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea in America (1997). Cites 962 Cites per year 60.13 Google Rank 485

• E Turkheimer, A Haley … ‘Socioeconomic status modifies heritability of IQ in young children’ (2003) in Psychological … Cites 573 Cites per year 57.3 Google Rank 83

• AP Streissguth, HM … ‘Moderate prenatal alcohol exposure: effects on child IQ and learning problems at age 7 ½ years (2006) in Alcoholism: Clinical and … Cites 387 Cites per year 55.29 Google Rank 381

• D Conley, Being Black, Living in the Red: Race, Wealth and Social Policy in America (1999). Cites 766 Cites per year 54.71 Google Rank 552

• M Harris, A Raviv, ‘Differences of Opinion Make a Horse Race’ (1993) in Review of Financial Studies. Cites 1090 Cites per year 54.5 Google Rank 383 FiachraByrne (talk) 21:44, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

For the discipline of psychology at least, the text to get would appear to be Robert J. Gregory's Psychological Testing: History, Principles and Applications (2010).FiachraByrne (talk) 21:44, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

We've clearly fallen into the POV pushing train here. The expressed sentiment appears to be that the views of Rushton and Jensen should be elevated even further, and this sentiment is being pushed by what appears to be original research and over-reliance on primary sources. If people are serious about contributing to this article, they are going to have to put away primary sources pick up some tertiary sources, like textbooks and external reviews, to get an understanding of the mainstream view of this topic. aprock (talk) 23:33, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you've come to those conclusions regarding POV pushing or original research. The attempt is to address in some kind of objective manner the undue tags that have been added to the article. If you look at the citation results from Scopus I've identified review articles and, as I haven't cherry picked them, they reflect a diversity of views. I can't select research articles or textbooks in a simple non-labour intensive manner with Google Scholar but in the post just above yours I've identified what I think is the single tertiary source that appears in the top 20 (based on total citations and citations per year) for those results. Now, it's a text book about psychological testing so, without having access to it at this point, I presume that it at least supports the validity of IQ tests. But I've highlighted the text not because it reflects my POV (it doesn't if that matters) but because it is a highly cited textbook that addresses race and IQ. Therefore, it should be a suitable source for the perspective of that discipline. I haven't doctored the results to reflect mine or any other point of view and, again, if you actually look through the Google ones I don't believe Rushton appears at all. FiachraByrne (talk) 00:00, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

As interesting as your research on Scopus has been, it is precisely original research and cannot be any kind of basis for determining which primary sources to cite. aprock (talk) 03:09, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Whereas your personal opinion is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.92.159.73 (talk) 11:10, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that James Flynn is probably the most reliable commentator on this topic ... but who cares? I have no expertise on this issue.

The writing of any article in WP depends upon researching good sources. The number of citation returns can be used to identify publications which are widely cited in the field thus indicating their importance, relevance and reliability in the field. Scopus and Google Scholar have been used to identify: 1) the citation returns for a single scholar - (Jensen using Scopus); review literature for the topic (using Scopus); and the most highly cited or ranked (according to Google) publications in the field (using Google Scholar). From the Google Scholar search I've identified a single tertiary source that is not currently used in the article but it would be quite possible to identify more by examining more returns. The Scopus returns identify many more secondary and tertiary sources. If I'm not mistaken this is what you were calling for yourself in previous posts? The citation returns from the Scopus or Google Scholar database searches are not themselves going to be included in the article so I don't see how WP:NOR is relevant. The initial impetus to investigate citations was to explore to what degree WP:UNDUE applied to certain tagged sections of the article. The policy on WP:UNDUE states, "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint". The methods it advocates to establish the proportional prominence of a given viewpoint are decidedly impressionistic but that would probably be sufficient in most scenarios. However, I'm attempting to introduce an objective measure to assist, but not determine, the relative weight that should be given to the primary, secondary and tertiary sources for the article. FiachraByrne (talk) 13:19, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Ultimately, any improvements we make to the article will have to be made one at a time. Rather than attempt to fix the entire article at once, I think it would be best to focus on specific steps we can take to incrementally make it better.

Are we agreed that this article gives undue prominence to Nisbett's Intelligence and How to Get It? It is the article's most cited source. It's cited more than the 1996 report from the APA, and more than any textbook. Intelligence and How to Get It is not actually the most prominent source that exists about race and intelligence, but this article treats it as though it were.

A few months ago, ArtifexMayhem went through the article and removed a lot of the material cited to Jensen that he viewed as excessive. I suggest that the same thing should now also be done for some of the excessive Nisbett material. Zeromus1 (talk) 22:23, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, we need good, highly cited secondary or, ideally, tertiary level sources for each of the relevant disciplines who have approached this research question (sociology, psychology, genetics, etc). We should then use these sources to frame the positions by discipline in each section and then drill down to primary sources to make sure that there's good coverage of all major viewpoints, arguments and rebuttals. I'm not sure the edits by ArtifexMayhem improved the article nor am I convinced, even if the presence of his 2009 publication is excessive, that editing out Nesbitt's points will necessarily improve the article either. Additionally, you appear to be advocating tit-for-tat editing which is not conducive to establishing any kind of consensus.

Anyhow, as I said citation counts, used on their own, are a crude measure. Bear in mind also that most of the citations removed were to Rushton and Jensen's 2010 article, which is hardly their most cited. Obviously more recent material won't have had the opportunity to get as many citations (and that Google counts everything) and recent articles & publications will have more up-to-date arguments and analysis of data and so, provided the primary research has had a chance to make it into the secondary literature, it should be treated more favourably. Going on citation counts alone it seems that Rushton and Jensen's 2010 article was over-cited and probably still is - but you'd have to look at the content of the article, the quality of sources which cite it, what disciplines they are in, how often the publication's authors are in fact citing it and what those sources say about it [1]. Equally, you'd have to do the same for Nisbett's 2009 article [2]. Having said that I'm not hugely in favour of removing content and citation counts should just be a guide to the use of sources. Also, overall I'd have to say that Jensen, pivotal as he is to the whole question, has pretty good coverage in terms of breadth and depth.

Nisbett has two publications cited.

• 2005 publication cited once in this article and entitled "Heredity, environment, and race differences in IQ: A commentary on Rushton and Jensen" (39 total cites; 4.88 per year);
• 2009 publication cited 13 times in this article entitled Intelligence and how to get it (160 cites in total; 40 per year).

Relevant publications by Nisbett which are not currently cited in the article include:

• RE Nisbett et al., Intelligence: New Findings and Theoretical Developments (2012) (19 cites; 19 per year)
• RE Nisbett, 'Race, Genetics and IQ' in The Black-White Test Score Gap (1998) (99 cites; 6.6 per year)

Jensen has 9 publications cited where he is either the sole or co-author.

• 1969 article cited 1 time in this article entitled 'How much can we boost IQ and scholastic achievement' (3397 cites; 77.2 per year);
• 1973 book cited 1 time in this article entitled Educability and Group Differences (15 cites; 0.38 per year);
• 1993 article with Whang cited 1 time in this article entitled 'Reaction time and intelligence' (44 cites; 2.2 per year);
• 1994 article with Johnson cited 1 time in this article entitled 'Race and Sex Difference in Head Size and IQ' (68 cites; 3.58 per year);
• 1998 book cited 3 times in this article entitled The G Factor (2181 cites; 145.4 per year);
• 2005 article with Rushton cited 7 times in this article entitled 'Thirty Years of Research on Race Difference in Cognitive Ability' (229 cites; 28.6 per year);
• 2006 article with Rushton cited 1 time in this article entitled 'The Totality of Available Evidence Shows the Race IQ Gap Still Remains' (35 cites; 5 per year);
• 2006 book cited 2 times in this article entitled Clocking the Mind (133 cites; 19 per year);
• 2010 article with Rushton cited 5 times in this article entitled 'Race and IQ: A theory-based review of the research in Richard Nisbett's Intelligence and How to Get It' (16 cites; 5.33).

Relevant relatively recent publications by Jensen which are currently not in the article include:

• AR Jensen, JP Rushton, 'Wanted: More Race Realism, Less Moralistic Fallacy' in Psychology, Public Policy and Law (2005) (35 cites; 4.38 per year)

FiachraByrne (talk) 00:31, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I suggested cutting out some of the Nisbett material just because looking at the article history, that appears to be the cleanest way to solve the problem of undue weight. When the Jensen material was removed, Victor Chmara reverted the removal once and then his revert was undone, but as far as I can see it never was brought up on the talk page. If we could do the same thing with Nisbett, that would be an easy way to solve the undue weight problem for him also.

The reason I'm unsure about your suggestion is because I'm not sure it's realistic we'll able to take a top-down approach and rewrite the whole article. It likely will take at least a month, and who knows what might change in that time? The Devil's Advocate helped a lot with reaching a consensus about the lead, but now there's a discussion at WP:AE about possibly indef blocking him. In my user talk, Victor Chmara said that he usually stays away from this article, and I'm not confident I'll still be around in a month either. Are you confident you'll be around for long enough for your approach to bring real improvements to the article? Zeromus1 (talk) 01:49, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

FiachraByrne, I could not agree more. High quality secondary sources are key. Where did you want to start? — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 04:55, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'm a little perturbed by how easy it appears for some users who work on this page to be sanctioned so I might review my participation here. Also, I've several deadlines for the next few days so I won't be posting so regularly, probably. Incidentally Zerosmus1 I left a comment on the discussion at WP:AE, for what it's worth, of my own limited experience of working with TDA on this page. I can't really advocate editing on the basis of when people may become blocked or banned, however. FiachraByrne (talk) 22:38, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Anyhow, as an immediate issue I think a fair point is raised that Nisbett's 2009 publication, while useful in addressing many of the issues, is over-represented as a source. Therefore, it would seem logical to replace some of those citations with 3rd-party-authored quality secondary sources that discuss Nisbett's findings. Due to the recency of Nisbett's book there aren't going to be that many that discuss the aspects of his text that deal specifically with race and IQ, unfortunately (63 mention race and IQ all told). As an aside, is it reasonable, if not ideal, to treat the literature review section (and only that) of primary research articles as secondary sources? Perhaps if we just agreed to follow WP:MEDRS so far as possible it might facilitate things. Anyhow, there have been about 160 citations of Nisbett's 2009 book and 63 mention race and IQ. I've been through a few of these and thus far the best I can find is this one which may be adequate for some points but is far from ideal. Are the arguments which Nisbett presents in his 2009 publication and which are contained in this WP article novel to the 2009 publication or has he published most of these points before and therefore could other secondary sources be used? Longer term I'd like to identify a few, reliable 3rd-party-authored secondary sources for each of the relevant disciplines that review the literature in some kind of systematic way and that present the arguments of the various proponents fairly. FiachraByrne (talk) 22:28, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

FiachraByrne, the paper you linked to appears to be about brain size. I can't tell whether it's a secondary source, but if it is it would be a good source to cite in the article's "Brain size" section. However, that section actually is not one of the sections that cites Nisbett, so I don't think it will be helpful for reducing the undue weight given to him.

I recently put some time into reviewing this article's citations to Intelligence and How to Get It, and also the history of the Jensen material that has been removed, to make some suggestions about how to solve this problem. The article currently has 13 citations to Nisbett's book. Here is my opinion about what to do with each of them:

1: "Richard Nisbett, another psychologist who had also commented at the time, later included an amplified version of his critique as part of the book Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count (2009)." It's reasonable for a history of the debate to include a mention of Nisbett, so I don't think this should be removed.

2. "The African American population of the United States is statistically more likely to be exposed to many detrimental environmental factors such as poorer neighborhoods, schools, nutrition, and prenatal and postnatal health care." This sentence has two sources, Nisbett 2009 and Cooper 2006. The Cooper source is adequate to support the sentence, so I think the Nisbett source can be removed as redundant.

3. "Nisbett argues cultural traditions valuing education can explain the high results in the US for Ashkenazi Jews (Talmud scholarship) and East Asians (Confucianism and the Imperial examination system)." This entire sentence (Cultural traditions valuing education) is just one sentence, cited entirely to Nisbett. I'm not convinced Nisbett's point is separate from the point made by the "Education", "Logographic writing system" and "Caste-like minorities" sections. If there are sources besides Nisbett that discuss cultural traditions valuing education outside of these other topics, then this section should be expanded using these sources, but I don't believe a one-sentence section cited only to Nisbett should stay in the article.

4. "A number of scientists, supported by the American Anthropological Association, reject any genetic contribution to racial IQ gaps." This sentence is part of a paragraph that's a back-and-forth between Jensen, Rushton, Nisbett, Herrnstein and Murray. I don't see the point of it besides giving more undue weight to all of these authors. I suggest getting rid of the whole paragraph.

5. "On the other hand, cultural psychologist Richard Nisbett has argued that "(t)here are a hundred ways that a genetic difference in intelligence could have arisen – either in favor of whites or in favor of blacks."" This sentence is contrasting Nisbett's viewpoint with Brace's, so we shouldn't remove one without removing the other. I'd be okay with replacing Nisbett with another source, or leaving this part alone for now.

6. "Dickens and Flynn argue that the conventional interpretation ignores the role of feedback between factors, such as those with a small initial IQ advantage, genetic or environmental, seeking out more stimulating environments which will gradually greatly increase their advantage, which, as one consequence in their alternative model, would mean that the "heritability" figure is only in part due to direct effects of genotype on IQ." This is cited to Hunt & Carlson and to Flynn & Dickens as well as to Nisbett. The other sources are more than adequate, so as with #2 I think the Nisbett citation can be removed as redundant.

7-9: The "racial admixture studies" section has several citations to Nisbett. These were originally part of a back-and-forth between Nisbett and Jensen, in which the Jensen material was later removed. I don't see the sense in this removal. Why did they also remove Mackenzie, which was a high-quality secondary source? I'm reluctant to remove the Nisbett material in this section because it offers a lot of detail that isn't in other sources (as far as I know), but I also don't think a single sentence cited to Jensen in three paragraphs of text was undue. It might be best to just change this section back to the way it was before the removal.

10 & 11: The "Mental chronometry" section has another back-and-forth between Jensen and Nisbett. I suggest removing most of the Jensen and Nisbett material (especially in the section's second paragraph), and replacing it with a secondary source such as Hunt (2011).

12 & 13: The "Policy relevance" section has two citations to Nisbett, and they are redundant with one another. It cites Nisbett for each of two sentences of the same paragraph, both of which are to say he thinks interventions should be better researched. I think we only need one of the two.

If other people agree with this proposal, The number of citations to Intelligence and How to Get It will be reduced from thirteen to six or seven, which seems more consistent with that book's amount of prominence. My proposal also will slightly reduce the number of citations to Jensen and Rushton, which might be valuable if the article has an undue weight problem for them also. What do others think about my proposal? Zeromus1 (talk) 09:04, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, as I said the source was far from ideal. I haven't had time to go through them all systematically. Superficially at least I think most of your suggestions are fine but, personally, I can agree until I've had time to read through the specific sections of the article that would be effected. I won't be able to do this for a couple of days, I'm afraid. FiachraByrne (talk) 01:45, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to say no to #2. The only relevant quote in Cooper's paper is: 'Abundant historical and social science data exist to demonstrate the impact of skin color gradients as a marker of social status. What Rowe would apparently like to do is dismiss the role of institutionalized racism in shaping the structural determinants of success in U.S. society, like the job, housing, and educational markets'. I don't think Cooper adequately supports the statement that, "The African American population of the United States is statistically more likely to be exposed to many detrimental environmental factors such as poorer neighborhoods, schools, nutrition, and prenatal and postnatal health care." He mentions lower birth rate weight but doesn't state explicitly that it has anything to do with prenatal care (although he clearly believes it's caused by social determinants). He supports much of the meaning of the first part of the sentence, 'more likely to be exposed to many detrimental environmental factors' but little else. If we're to replace Nisbett in this instance we'd need a better source for this statement. FiachraByrne (talk) 00:37, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The brain size topic already has it's own article. I would suggest updating that article appropriately, then applying the appropriate wp:summary style here. Adding new information here without first adding it to the main articles for that topic would not make sense. aprock (talk) 02:55, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

FiachraByrne, thanks for noticing that sourcing issue. What do you recommend? I can't think offhand of any high-quality secondary sources that go into as much detail about #2 as Nisbett does, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. If you know of one, we could replace the second Nisbett citation with it. Or we could change that sentence to say "more likely to be exposed to many detrimental environmental factors", and cite it to just Cooper. Either option would be fine with me.

Also, can you give an opinion about the rest of the changes I proposed? Zeromus1 (talk) 04:03, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm just going through them as I have time. For the moment I'd be inclined to leave #2 but I don't imagine it should be so difficult to get another source to support that statement. FiachraByrne (talk) 08:24, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree with #3. I can't find sources that would allow for an expansion of that section. If anyone else can, please chip in. FiachraByrne (talk) 23:00, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

It looks like there's consensus to remove this section so removing this now. BlackHades (talk) 12:44, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

No. 4. I guess you could drop Nesbitt from this but I would have thought the genetic contribution to any putative difference in IQ between "racial groups" is kind of key to the whole argument? edit - perhaps use the Hunt evaluation of Jensen's and Rushton's estimate quoted by Aprock below? FiachraByrne (talk) 03:25, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

No. 6. I haven't checked the other sources, but if what you say is true Nisbett can be removed from this.

Nos 7-9. I'd more or less return that section to the way that it was previously. I think the editing of sources to remove some sections was highly selective.FiachraByrne (talk) 03:23, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Nos 10 & 11. I don't have Hunt's book so I'd like to hear Aprock's and Victor's opinion of this proposal.FiachraByrne (talk) 03:28, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Nos 12 & 13. Agree - but I'd be inclined to rewrite that whole section. FiachraByrne (talk) 03:30, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm glad you agree with me about most of these, but I'm not sure you understand what I'm suggesting in #4. I'm suggesting getting rid of that whole paragraph, not just the part cited to Nisbett. "A number of scientists, supported by the American Anthropological Association, reject any genetic contribution to racial IQ gaps. The American Psychological Association, while maintaining the causes of the gap are presently unknown, stated that "what little [direct evidence] there is fails to support the genetic hypothesis." Jensen & Rushton and Herrnstein & Murray, however, argue that there is a substantial (50–80% in the US according to Rushton and Jensen) genetic contribution to the black-white IQ gap."

What does this paragraph accomplish? It's just rehashing what the rest of the article says about the viewpoints of these groups and researchers. I don't approve of how it says "a number of scientists" when citing Nisbett, Mountain & Risch, but lists the four hereditarian researchers by name. It would be more neutral to say "Nisbett, Mountain and Risch" instead of "A number of scientists". This paragraph also gives undue weight to Nisbett, Jensen and Rushton, while ignoring the views of researchers like Loehlin and Hunt who take intermediate or agnostic positions. Because this whole paragraph has so many problems, and appears to add nothing of value to the article, I'm suggesting the paragraph should be removed. Zeromus1 (talk) 01:33, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'd regard that section as a secondary lede which should/could be used to summarise the broad positions within the field. The reason, I presume, behind referring to "A number of scientists" in the first section and naming individual researchers in the second is that the first is a mainstream stance and the second is not. I think it provides a good precis of positions prior to the more in-depth treatment which follows and also distinguishes between general positions held by bodies associated with particular disciplines and the position of individual researchers who are not mainstream. To argue for or against the phrase 'a number of scientists' you'd have to construct an argument as to whether or not it's a mainstream position in the sciences generally. Likewise with the naming of Jensen & Rushton. FiachraByrne (talk) 13:50, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't think either the hereditarian position or the 100% environmental position is mainstream. Victor Chmara made the point below that mainstream sources such as Earl Hunt most often take an agnostic viewpoint that rejects both of the extreme positions. Hunt's book also summarizes the positions of Jensen, Rushton and Nisbett, so this paragraph could be replaced with a summary from him. There seems to be a consensus that Hunt is a reliable mainstream source that this article should use more of, so maybe replacing the primary sources in that paragraph with Hunt's summary would be the best option. What do you think of that suggestion? Zeromus1 (talk) 20:40, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

break

I'm not sure I understand the objections to Nisbett as a source. The current problem with the article is the undue weight given to Rushton and Jensen, to the great exclusion of more mainstream researchers. aprock (talk) 14:11, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Aprock, contrary to what you seem to think, "mainstream" does not mean "people who agree with me." Nisbett is a social psychologist who has never done original research on intelligence. He has never published a single article in specialist differential psychology journals. He has published a few polemical accounts of the race and intelligence issue, and is certainly not a mainstream intelligence researcher, or an expert on intelligence at all. In contrast, Jensen is about as mainstream as it gets. For example, his The g Factor is the bible of contemporary psychometric intelligence research, cited more frequently than any other work in the field. Rushton, too, was widely published in specialist journals, and, IIRC, sat on the editorial boards of Intelligence and Personality and Individual Differences. Non-mainstream researchers do not have such credentials.

The problem with this article is that some people want to exclude certain arguments and certain lines of evidence even though they are reported in reliable sources. Ideally, this article would give an impartial account of all the relevant evidence and all the various arguments and counter-arguments that researchers with different perspectives have put forth. Inevitably, Jensen and his coauthors are going to feature prominently in a neutrally written article, because race and intelligence as a topic of scientific research exists today largely because of Jensen's work. For example, it's bizarre to suggest that Nisbett's views should have a prominent place in the article but not Jensen's, considering that most of Nisbett's work on this topic is explicitly about countering Jensen's arguments.--Victor Chmara (talk) 15:16, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Aprock, contrary to what you seem to think, "mainstream" does not mean "people who agree with me." If you're going to preface your remarks with a gross assumption of bad faith, do you really think anyone is going to take you seriously? I suggest you strike that remark. aprock (talk) 02:27, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

When you're claiming that someone is or isn't mainstream, you're expected to back up the claim with sources. Otherwise it's just your personal opinion. Of course, this is far from the first time you've attempted to have Jensen or others written off in a similarly cavalier way.--Victor Chmara (talk) 07:35, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

The fact that Rushton and Jensen's conclusions are not in the mainstream is not a personal opinion. The status of their research done by Rushton and Jensen has been hashed over multiple times on the talk pages here. The most relevant place to review would be [3] and [4]. To date, there is no direct evidence or even a proposed mechanism which suggest that the achievement gap among races is due to genetics. If you review tertiary sources like Hunt's Human Intelligenc, he is quite clear about the validity of their conclusions:

The 80% default hypothesis [of genetic contribution to racial differences poposed by Rushton, Jensen, and Lynn] is an extreme and excessively precise statement. It is based on the assumption that factors that contribute to the between-group differences are the same factors that contribute to within-group differences. This is doubtful... The evidence required to quantify the relative differences is lacking.[pg 434] The argument for genetic differences has been carried forward largely by circumstantial evidence.[pg 447].

You'll find similar assessments from any other mainstream tertiary source. See also chapter 15 of The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence. aprock (talk) 19:56, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

The status of the hereditarian view has indeed been hashed over many times, and never has anyone been able to demonstrate that it does not deserve a prominent place in this article. The attempt to marginalize the views of people like Jensen contravenes WP:NPOV, because Jensen is very prominently featured in reliable sources. Hunt, for example, while not endorsing Jensen's "default hypothesis", discusses Jensen's views at length, and also rejects Nisbett's views ("Nisbett's extreme statement has virtually no chance of being true"). Hunt explicitly refuses to endorse either of the "extreme" hypotheses about the causes of racial differences, which is what we should do in this article, too. Hunt's concluding chapter in the The Cambridge Handbook also gives a thorough trashing to the sort of obscurantist views presented by Daley (who?) and Onwuegbuzie (who?) in their chapter in the book.--Victor Chmara (talk) 16:12, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

No one has said Rushton and Jensen (and Lynn) do not deserve a prominent place. What has been said, and the reason for the tags, is that the current weight given to their research, and their out of the mainstream conclusions, is undue. Regarding Hunt, I certainly agree that it is a high quality tertiary source reflective of mainstream consensus. And a source which the article should broadly reflect. The extensive hashing over primary sources (as has been occurring above) ahead of tertiary and secondary sources is precisely what need avoid. aprock (talk) 16:55, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, if there's agreement on the use of Hunt as a good secondary source and you both have access to this source can we use it to replace some of the primary sources in the article? There is, I think Aprock, a problem with the overuse of Nisbett's 2009 book which also needs to be addressed. FiachraByrne (talk) 22:46, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Aprock, you seem to be under the assumption that I want to add more primary sources, or that I want to increase the amount of weight given to Jensen and Rushton, but I haven't proposed either of those. I've proposed to add back one Jensen citation that was removed earlier, and also to remove two others currently in the article, so the overall effect will be to slightly reduce the number of citations to Jensen. I'm also proposing to add back one secondary source (Mackenzie) that was removed without a good reason, and to reduce the amount of weight given to Nisbett. If you think the article gives undue weight to Jensen and Rushton, it certainly gives undue weight to Nisbett also. Addressing the problem of undue weight to Nisbett doesn't have to mean we have to deny there's a problem with undue weight to Jensen. All it means is that we're addressing the Nisbett problem first, because Intelligence and How to Get It currently is the article's most cited source, and it shouldn't be.

Also, I agree with everyone else that Hunt is a good mainstream secondary source. I've already proposed that the Jensen and Nisbett exchange in the Mental Chronometry section be replaced with a summary from Hunt, and I'm open to similar proposals for some of the other sections. Zeromus1 (talk) 22:55, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

The only arguments against Nisbett I've really seen on this talk page are based on google scholar, which cannot be used to establish due weight. Given that it's a relatively recent tertiary source by a well respected scientist published for a lay audience, it's hard to see how it is out of place here. That said, it's certainly the case that we should also incorporate other tertiary sources like Hunt and Daley, while reducing reliance on many of the primary sources in the article. aprock (talk) 03:39, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, Victor has a few points but no-one can really argue that Nisbett is an unreliable source. I'm not so sure that he's so central to the field that he should be the preeminent authority in the article. Also, I think it would be better if the article leant more towards 3rd party secondary sources rather than those most central to the dispute. If nothing else, as with the Hunt example above, there'd be a much better chance of achieving consensus. Plus, you'd have to look at the actual nature of Zeromus's suggestions which are, I think, pretty fair all in all. As regards Google Scholar, well, it's just an indication (and only an indication) of how relevant the scholarly field thinks a given publication is. But you'd have to drill down into the actual citations to establish that. And, of course, you'd have to look at the quality and nature of the publication. Good systematic reviews in secondary sources by otherwise non-interested and authoritative parties in each of the relevant disciplines would be ideal. FiachraByrne (talk) 19:27, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Nisbett's oversized footprint here is attributable in no small measure to the impact of at least one on/off again topically banned user editing under two disclosed accounts who may have earnestly believed Nisbett provided "balance". That's because, in my estimation, his conception of how this article should be constructed is along the lines of "Jensen/Rushton say" and that he might pretend "NPOV'd" by a kind of "go through the motions" after-shave, or platitude, "What Jensen/Rushton say is not so." And Nisbett had a neat and tidy Rushton/Jensen "rebut" in a teensy appendix in his book that was overly cited to satisfy this fake-do NPOV. And thus Nisbett got cited to death about what he thought about Rushton/Jensen's ideas (which were in his appendix!) Nisbett's not an unreliable source. He may be a ridiculously overused source, but that's only because so are Jensen and Rushton. Jensen and Rushton do not demarcate this topic. Professor marginalia (talk) 08:13, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Lack of post-adolescence follow up in Moore, Eyferth, and Tizard studies

Under "Uniform rearing conditions" I added the following line regarding the Moore, Eyferth, and Tizard studies. "However unlike the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study, these tests did not retest the children post-adolescence when heritability of IQ would be much higher."

This is an important fact to mention as heritability of IQ is somewhat low pre-adolescence but very high post-adolescence as mentioned earlier in the article under "Heritability within and between groups" which states "It has been argued that intelligence is substantially heritable within populations, with 30–50% of variance in IQ scores in early childhood being attributable to genetic factors in analyzed US populations, increasing to 75–80% by late adolescence."

Aprock reverts my edit saying "not in cited source". Although he doesn't make it clear what exactly he's objecting. But everything in the line I added can be confirmed by sources that are already cited in this article. The argument that heritability of IQ is higher post adolescence is already mentioned earlier in the article as stated above. The fact that the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study retested the children post-adolescence is also mentioned in the article under "Uniform rearing conditions" which states "The children were restudied ten years later." As for the fact that Moore, Eyferth, and Tizard studies never retests the children, this is confirmed by materials already sourced in the article here and here. None of the cited sources to Moore, Eyferth, and Tizard give any indication of a retest. The fact that these studies have no follow up was also previously mentioned in earlier versions of this article as seen here

So it's unclear to me what Aprock's objection could be. Is it that heritability of IQ is higher post-adolescence? Is it that Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study does retest post-adolescence? Or is it that Moore, Eyferth, and Tizard never does retests post-adolescence? BlackHades (talk) 03:38, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

The source does not mention anything about retesting the children in post-adolescence. If I somehow missed the section where that is discussed, I apologize. Otherwise, a pointer to the page and paragraph would be helpful here. If you're arguing that we should include content describing what is not in the source, that probably won't pass muster. aprock (talk) 03:58, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

The issue of lack of retesting post-adolescence in the Moore, Eyferth, and Tizard studies is mentioned here and here. I can add those citations. It just didn't seem necessary since it was seemed clear these studies did not ever retest. Would you have any objections to simply adding these new citations? BlackHades (talk) 04:31, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Here's another source from the book "The Scientific Study of General Intelligence: Tribute to Arthur Jensen" by Helmuth Nyborg. pg. 402.

"Moore study differs from the Minnesota study in two possibly relevant ways. First, Moore's sample was smaller - there were 9 children whose biological parents were Black who were adopted by White families and there were 14 similarly adopted children who were biologically biracial. Second, the children were administered IQ tests at an earlier age than the follow-up tests administered in the Minnesota study. The data would be more dispositive if the sample were larger and if the children were older." BlackHades (talk) 05:35, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

It appears that you are suggesting that we introduce your own original research into the article. If you don't have a source for the content you want to introduce into the article, then it doesn't belong. If you want to include the criticism of Moore, I don't think that's out of line, but applying it to all the studies when there are not sources to support that is original research. aprock (talk) 17:18, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

There would be the similar criticisms for Eyferth and Tizard. Since like Moore, they all have the same issue in regard to the lack of retesting. I'll find them and post them here...Here's one for Eyferth. I'll search for Tizard right now.

"The children tested in this study [Eyferth] were young. At these ages analyses of performance on tests of intelligence usually find some evidence of between family environmental influences on performance." ---The Scientific Study of General Intelligence: Tribute to Arthur Jensen by Helmuth Nyborg. pg. 406. BlackHades (talk) 21:42, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Here's Tizard.

"Tizard (1974) compared Black (African and West Indian), White, and mixed-parentage children and found no significant differences among the three groups on several language comprehension tests and on the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence(WPPSI); the single significant difference was in favor of the non-White children. Moore (1986) found that at age 7, 23 Black children adopted by middle-class White families had a mean IQ of 117, whereas a similar group of children adopted by middle-class Black families had a mean IQ of 104, both significantly above the national Black mean of 85. To be more informative, future studies need to be supplemented by follow-up testing, as in the Minnesota Study. Behavior genetic studies consistently show that, as people age, their genes exert ever more influence, whereas family socialization effects decrease (see Figure 3)."---Rushton, J. Philippe; Jensen, Arthur R (2005). "Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive Ability". Psychology, Public Policy and Law 11 (2): pg 259. BlackHades (talk) 21:50, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Neanderthal DNA a factor?

Given that a couple of years ago, Eurasians were found to have some neanderthal DNA (with Asians having even more than Europeans) but people of African heritage having none, there is a correspondence between IQ results and neanderthal DNA. Is anyone aware of any studies into this? groovygower (talk) 04:15, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

IQ of Koreans adopted by White families studies

There are several studies listed in the article on the IQ of Blacks adopted by White families, however studies done on Koreans adopted by White families seem strangely omitted.

There are several studies done on the IQ of Korean children by White families in Western countries such as US, Belgium, and Netherlands. (Winick 1975, Clark & Hanisee 1982, Frydman & Lynn 1989, Stams 2000). These studies should be added to the article. But before I add them, would there be any objections to adding these studies? Would there be any reasons why these studies are not in the article currently? BlackHades (talk) 00:19, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I say go for it. Wikipedia is known for it's NPOV, so even if something 'seems' contraversial, if it's backed up with evidence (as studies are ), it's definately worth mentionning. groovygower (talk) 01:56, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Korean adoptees have been studied[5] in Sweden, too. They score slightly higher than the native population whereas other non-Western adoptees (mainly Indians, Thais, Chileans, Sri Lankans, Colombians, Ethiopians, and Ecuadorians) score substantially lower than the native population. There are comparable differences in school performance. However, we should find and use some secondary source that sums up these various studies.--Victor Chmara (talk) 14:22, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm trying to find the time to put this all together. Trying to collect relevant studies, secondary sources, and create tables of the results. Any assistance from others to help put this together will be greatly appreciated. BlackHades (talk) 06:52, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Some of Richard Lynn's books may discuss these studies. Lynn is a highly opinionated author, but if you intend to include this material, citing his books would be preferable over citing the primary papers. --Mors Martell (talk) 06:53, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Interpretation of AAA 1994 statement.

The lede reports the AAA 1994 as saying that "intelligence cannot be biologically determined by race". The statement actually says that "The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is deeply concerned by recent public discussions which imply that intelligence is biologically determined by race." The lede does not seem to reflect well the content of the statement. Could this be improved? Might I suggest replacing the sentence with: "The position of the American Anthropological Association is that variation in intelligence cannot be meaningfully explained by dividing a species into biologically-defined races." Thoughts?--Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 22:06, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Given...

WHEREAS, differentiating species into biologically defined "races" has proven meaningless and unscientific as a way of explaining variation (whether in intelligence or other traits), 

— American Anthropological Association Statement on "Race" and Intelligence, 1994.

"Race" thus evolved as a worldview, a body of prejudgments that distorts our ideas about human differences and group behavior. Racial beliefs constitute myths about the diversity in the human species and about the abilities and behavior of people homogenized into "racial" categories. The myths fused behavior and physical features together in the public mind, impeding our comprehension of both biological variations and cultural behavior,implying that both are genetically determined. Racial myths bear no relationship to the reality of human capabilities or behavior. Scientists today find that reliance on such folk beliefs about human differences in research has led to countless errors.

— American Anthropological Association Statement on "Race", 1998. (emphasis mine)

..we certainly could expand the sentence with more specifics. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 08:00, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

POV editing

It appears that Black Hades has decided to approach editing the article in a distinctly POV manner, removing sourced material which does not support the hereditarian view ([6], [7], [8]), and adding content which supports the hereditarian view ([9], [10], [11], [12], [13]). I suggest that more care be taken in done bringing the article into a neutral state. aprock (talk) 07:22, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely 100% incorrect. This article is currently terribly out of NPOV due to some editors, that support the environmentalist viewpoint, that have been systematically practicing WP:Truth. Hence a lot of highly relevant studies that meets WP:Verifiability published in major mainstream journals have either been completely omitted or mischaracterized (e.g. Templeton, Flynn) if they even remotely hint at the possibility of genetic contribution. All relevant studies that meets WP:Verifiability should be EQUALLY represented and positions by major scientific figures should be accurately presented in order to meet NPOV. BlackHades (talk) 07:58, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

In regards to you reverting my removal of Wicherts. Wicherts statements are directly a rebuttal to Rushton's position which was previously in this article. Rushton's position was removed at some point but not the rebuttal to it. This is just one of the many examples of editors here practicing WP:Truth. Why do you want to keep a rebuttal to something that no longer exists in the article? Either Rushton's position should be re-entered into the section along with Wicherts's direct rebuttal of Rushton or neither should be there. I'm trying to make this page NPOV which some editors clearly are not. BlackHades (talk) 08:09, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Rushton's work is cited both in the section text and references. At the same time, Witchert's critique discusses the issue more broadly than simply referring to Rushton's work. I suggest you take better care to read the sources, and present them in a balanced manner instead of just deleting relevant sourced material. Your attempts to make the page "NPOV" are not clearly achieving that goal. In fact, a cursory review of your edits indicates that you may be achieving the opposite. aprock (talk) 08:12, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Rushton's work is only cited to criticize it. His position and POV is never given. Regarding your statement of Wicherts, I agree there is some more broadly discussed critiques than just Rushton, that in retrospect, does belong there. But the ones specifically tailored to Rushton does not belong there. Not without re-entering Rushton's position and POV. It makes no sense to rebut something that's not even there. BlackHades (talk) 09:28, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Why is there so many relevant studies that meet WP:Verifiability that was completely omitted from this article? For example, studies relating to the heritability of brain size, trans-adoption studies of Koreans, the complete lack of criticism or rebuttals of environmentalist studies such as Witty and Jenkins (1936), the complete mischaractization of Templeton's position, inaccurate figures of the Shuey's study, etc. You can't deny that some editors, in support of the environmentalist position, are guilty of systematically practicing WP:Truth that have made this article completely out of NPOV. BlackHades (talk) 08:33, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

If you think there is a serious problem with the edits of particular contributors, I suggest you take your issues to WP:AE. This article is covered by WP:ARBR&I, and the proper sanctions can be considered there. aprock (talk) 08:41, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

The heavy violators seem to no longer be editing so I don't feel it's necessary to go to WP:AE at this point. However, a lot of their WP:Truth editing still exists in this article and that should be addressed for NPOV. Which is what I'm doing. BlackHades (talk) 09:09, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

In regards to your revert of my changes to the "Genetic Arguments" lede. How is the previous lede more NPOV than the changes I made? The American Anthropological Association never states "reject any genetic contribution". They state they don't agree with the implication "that intelligence is biologically determined by race" which is what I changed it to. And the American Psychological Assocation clearly states that their position is that there is not enough evidence to support either the environmentalist position nor the genetic position. To try to omit one or the other would not be NPOV. And to specifically state Rushton, Jensen, Murray, and Herrnstein is both not NPOV and undue weight. There is certainly more scientists than these four that support the hereditarian position which is why it was changed to "a number of scientists". You haven't given any reasons for this revert. BlackHades (talk) 08:55, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Again, you appear to be arguing strictly from the perspective that the article does not give due weight to the hereditarian point of view. On the contrary, as it currently stands, the article gives undue weight to scientifically marginalized research of hereditarians. This is in no small part due to the fact that the only editors which have been making extensive edits over the last four years have been the kind of hold the hereditarian hypothesis as primary. Please reread the APA report. While the specific wording might due with some improvement, the APA does not regard genetic and environmental explanations as equally relevant. aprock (talk) 15:24, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. At some point in the past, yes there were editors in support of the hereditarian view, that engaged in WP:Truth, that made the article not NPOV. But currently as the article stands right now, the opposite is true. It is editors in support of the environmentalist view, that have engaged in WP:Truth, that has now caused the article to give undue weight to the environmentalist view while completely omitting or mischaracterizing highly relevant studies that meets WP:Verifiability as shown by my many examples above. You can clearly see this the way hereditarian views consistently have rebuttals to them while environmentalist views quite often does not. Even when plenty of sources that meet WP:Verifiability that is heavily critical of those environmentalist positions exists. BlackHades (talk) 19:15, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

By all means, continue to edit the article to improve it. The most important advice I can give you would be to refrain from introducing content based on primary sources, especially those with no secondary source to give weight to the content. aprock (talk) 15:57, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

The most glaring issues I think are resolved now. There are some sections that still needs some adjustment but overall there seems to be better balance. In regards to the POV tag. That tag was added back in December 2011 when Hipocrite was making major changes to the "Genetic arguments" lede and Victor Chmara was reverting them. The current lede looks much different now than any of the versions back then. It more accurately portrays AAA and APA and there is more balance overall. Unless there's a specific objection you have, I don't see the need for the tag anymore. BlackHades (talk) 03:01, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Take a look at recent edits and try telling me editors that support the environmentalist position isn't practicing WP:Truth by removing relevant sourced content. Including Wicherts which you yourself said was "relevant sourced material". BlackHades (talk) 04:36, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Removing relevant cited material.

69.115.61.253 and KillerChihuahua appear to be making repeated attempts to remove relevant cited material from the article that clearly meets WP:Verifiability with several primary and secondary sources. The material in question being average brain size differences. Average brain size differences have been acknowledged by both hereditarians and environmentalists and discussed in length by both in what relation it may or may not have on IQ gaps.[14] [15] In accordance with WP:point of view neutrality requires that due weight be given. And for editors to not practice WP:Truth by removing relevant sourced material that meets WP:Verifiability. BlackHades (talk) 23:52, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

69.115.61.253 first attempted to removed said cited material on January 3, 2013 seen here. It was quickly reverted by The Devil's Advocate here He appears to be reattempting to remove the same cited material he has previously attempted last month. BlackHades (talk) 23:52, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Obviously, as you can easily read from our edit summaries, we don't consider your material to be relevant at all. There is no "due weight" to give to something which is only marginally related to the topic of this article. Your POV pushing and edit warring to include this questionable content, whch only serves to underscore unfortunate racist biases, is hardly improving this article - quite the contrary. KillerChihuahua 00:47, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Examples of reliable sources that meet WP:Verifiability that discuss brain size, intelligence, and race. BlackHades (talk) 01:55, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

http://link.springer.com/article/10.3758%2FBF03210739?LI=true
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/019188699090186U
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2742800?uid=3739824&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101770772057
http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pr0.1990.66.2.659
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/sbp/sbp/1993/00000021/00000002/art00001
http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/6893659/reload=0;jsessionid=igXnFCM7wCA0OYrkGdSg.4
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925492796030545
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/17/10/921.short
http://www.amsciepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pr0.1990.66.1.337
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ana.410100308/abstract
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/016028969290022J
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1997-43129-007
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/amp/52/1/69/
http://wicherts.socsci.uva.nl/wichertsPAIDrejoinder.pdf
http://www.charlesdarwinresearch.org/gFactorBookReview98.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/019188699090187V
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/016028969290017L
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/law/11/2/311/
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0191886994901325
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886999002561
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289697900040
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002839320400003X
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0160289695900020
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199107253250403#t=article+Results.
http://analyseeconomique.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/whole-brain-size-and-general-mental-ability-a-review.pdf
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028969900015X
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6935981
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ar.a.20395/full

Whether YOU believe the material is relevant or not is completely irrelevant when countless number of reliable sources absolutely consider it relevant. POV pushing through WP:Truth will NOT be tolerated. BlackHades (talk) 01:55, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Your desired additions are a violation of WP:SYNTH. You are edit warring to include questionable information. I strongly advise you to gain consensus for these edits before reverting again. KillerChihuahua 04:35, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not going to go through and type the issues with each and every one of your references, but for example, the pubmed (second from end) is about the human FACE. I cannot begin to say how inappropriate that source is for this article. KillerChihuahua 04:52, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

The pubmed article you speak of was NEVER a source in this article. I was simply refuting your assertion and claim that brain size differences is not "relevant" and unimportant. Numerous amount of studies in WP:reliable sources will say otherwise. You still haven't explained why your personal opinion should override the collective opinion and positions of WP:reliable sources. Violation of WP:SYNTH? Where? How? What line? This is clear POV pushing. You don't delete content that meets WP:Verifiability simply because you don't want it or like it. And the references below? Simply dismiss them? Pretend they don't exist? BlackHades (talk) 06:47, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

"Using data from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), autopsy, endocranial measurements, and other techniques, we show that (1) brain size is correlated with cognitive ability about .44 using MRI; (2) brain size varies by age, sex, social class, and race; and (3) cognitive ability varies by age, sex, social class, and race. Brain size and cognitive ability show a curvilinear relation with age, increasing to young adulthood and then decreasing; increasing from women to men; increasing with socioeconomic status; and increasing from Africans to Europeans to Asians."

Rushton, J Philippe. (1992) Brain size and cognitive ability: Correlations with age, sex, social class, and race Personality and Individual Differences 11(8). pg 795-797.

Possibly acceptable. KillerChihuahua 07:02, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

"Three studies of 9 and 10 yr old children in Northern Ireland and England obtain correlation coefficients of +0.18 to +0.26 between head size and intelligence. New evidence in the United States confirms this positive relationship and shows that head circumference is smaller in black children than in white."

Lynn, Richard. (1993) New evidence on brain size and intelligence Social Behavior and Personality 21(2). pg 89-92

Possibly acceptable. KillerChihuahua 07:02, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

"Data are reported and analyzed for a sub-sample of 100 Asian Americans. The Asian sub-sample averaged a higher IQ (110) at age 7 than did the white (102) or the black sub-samples (90). At birth, 4 months, 1 year, and 7 years, the Asians averaged a larger cranial capacity than did the whites or blacks despite being smaller in stature and lighter in weight (at age 7, Asian z scores from -0.20 to -0.40 in height and weight). Head circumference (or cranial capacity) at birth correlated .46 with head circumference (or cranial capacity) at age 7 which correlates .21 with IQ test scores at age 7."

Rushton, J Philippe. (1997) Cranial size and IQ in Asian Americans from birth to age seven Intelligence 25(1). pg 7-20.

Possibly acceptable. KillerChihuahua 07:02, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

"Scores on 17 diverse tests of cognitive abilities obtained from 82 pairs of monozygotic (MZ) and 61 pairs of dizygotic (DZ) twins were correlated with head size. A general factor, or psychometric g, was extracted from the tests, and g factor scores were found to be correlated with head size variables not only within individuals, but within twin pairs and between twin pairs. The size of the various tests' g loadings predicts the degree to which the tests are correlated with head size. This finding adds one more biological variable—head size and, by inference, brain size—to the list of other biological variables reported in the literature as showing a significant relation to psychometric g, the general factor common to all cognitive tests. Also, the varying magnitude of the mean difference between groups of white and black children on the 17 tests is related to the tests' loadings on g, on spatial ability, and the tests' correlations with head size."

Jensen, Arthur. (1994) Psychometric g related to differences in head size Personality and Individual Differences 17(5). pg 597-606.

Twins are not of different races. This is completely unacceptable. KillerChihuahua 07:02, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

"The most extensive study of race differences in endocranial volume to date measured 20,000 skulls from around the world and reported East Asians, Europeans, and Africans had average cranial volumes 1,415 cm3, 1,362 cm3, and 1,268 cm3 respectively (Beals, Smith, & Dodd, 1984). Because 1 cubic inch of brain matter contains millions of brain cells and hundreds of millions of synapses or neural connections, these group differences in average brain size may explain group differences in average IQ."

Rushton, J. Philippe (2005). Thirty years of research on race... Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 11(2). pg 235-294.

"May" is too thin for using as a source in this article. KillerChihuahua 07:02, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

"The relation of IQ (Cattell's Culture Fair Intelligence Test) to brain size was studied in 103 right- and left-handed men and women at Atatürk University in eastern Turkey. Cerebral areas were measured on a midsagittal section of the brain using MRI. An overall correlation of 40 was found between MRI-measured total area and IQ thereby further supporting the IQ–brain size hypothesis."

Tan, Üner (1999). Magnetic resonance imaging brain size/IQ relations in Turkish University students Intelligence 27(1). pg 83-92. BlackHades (talk) 06:47, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

No mention of race; unacceptable source.

Ok, I've gone through these and done a preliminary assessment. We are left with three sources which might be useful for this article. We will need to examine each one carefully to determine whether it is indeed a reliable source from experts, and if so, whether it is applicable to this article and if so, how to incorporate any content therefrom. I suggest a new talk page section, leaving behind the wall of links and inappropriate sources, and taking the three which pass muster there for discussion. KillerChihuahua 07:02, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Wow. Thanks very much for watching this article. BlackHades, I also strongly suggest you not replace any of this material without consensus. Dougweller (talk) 05:45, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Replace content? You mean restore relevant content that many editors from all different viewpoints worked tirelessly together to create? No consensus required for KillerChihuahua to remove massive sections of the article in a POV attempt but somehow I need consensus on restoring content that many editors worked tirelessly together to give due weight to? With relevant WP:Verifiability content in order to achieve NPOV? BlackHades (talk) 07:00, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Doug, Steve Rubenstein asked me to watch this article a while back, and I'm sorry to say I haven't put in a lot of effort to it, but I'm trying to bump it up on my priority list. I feel guilty every time I see it on my watchlist. :-( KillerChihuahua 06:22, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

@BlackHades: If starting a new talk page section as suggested by KillerChihuahua, please omit mention of other editors. For example, the current section has an aggressive heading that identifies two editors, and the opening comment makes some grand assertions regarding TRUTH. Please stick to article content: what text should be added or changed or not removed, and why. There will be a time for discussing other editors if this article becomes the subject of arbitration enforcement (see WP:ARBR&I). Johnuniq (talk) 08:10, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

The previous text that KillerChihuahua keeps removing was already properly sourced. He has yet to state which lines in that text he objects to. He simply made a blanket deletion stating that nothing in there was relevant to the article. Here is the text in question. Each line has the proper reliable sources listed. We can replace the previous refs with refs that KillerChihuahua deems "possibly acceptable" above if that satisfies him. The irony is that the previous text was already undue weight to the environmentalist position. Since it mentions the existence of average brain size differences, which is acknowledged by both hereditarians and environmentalists, but only gave the interpretation of what its cause and effects are by an environmentalist known as Wicherts. A hereditarian interpretation is never given here even though plenty of WP:reliable sources exists for it. Which makes me wonder how much more up in arms people would be if this section actual was NPOV with fair weight and contained both hereditarian and environmental interpretations of average brain size differences. BlackHades (talk) 08:47, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

“ Several studies have reported that races overlap significantly in brain size but differ in average brain size. The magnitude of these differences varies depending on the particular study and the methods used. In general, these studies have reported that East Asians have on average a larger brain size than whites who have on average a larger brain size than blacks. Other researchers have also found variation in average brain size between human groups, but concluded that this variation should be viewed as being based on biogeographic ancestry and independently of "race".

Wicherts writes that there is no reason to suppose that brain size is environmentally insensitive and that even if race differences in brain size are assumed to be entirely genetic in origin, they still leave 91–95% of racial IQ gap unaccounted for.

”

The comment just above has too much off-topic commentary, with over half its content referring to other editors. I have not yet formed a view on the material, but was any reason given for its removal (for example, in an edit summary)? If so, has that reason been addressed? Johnuniq (talk) 09:17, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

First revert occurred by 69.115.61.253 January 3, 2013 here. It was quickly reverted by The Devil's Advocate here. 69.115.61.253 comes back a month later and makes the same 2nd revert attempt here. Which I reverted here. Followed by KillerChihuahua reverting here. Neither 69.115.61.253 nor KillerChihuahua made any attempts to discuss in talk before removing such huge chunks of relevant cited material. KillerChihuahua then proceeds to edit war while at the same time accusing me of edit warring while giving extremely vague "it's not relevant" and "it's racist" end of discussion statements. Nevermind the fact that it's backed up by several WP:reliable sources. Never responds to my question exactly what line he has an issue with and why. Never responds to why his personal opinion should override and has the power to censor the opinions and positions expressed in WP:reliable sources. BlackHades (talk) 09:50, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

All of the above comment is off-topic for this article talk page. If you believe that "KillerChihuahua then proceeds to edit war", I recommend raising the matter at WP:AE because this article and talk page are "currently subject to active arbitration remedies" (see the box at the top of this page). The talk page of an article is the wrong place to talk about other editors. If necessary, that can be further explained at WP:AE. As mentioned above, please stick to article content: what text should be added or changed or not removed, and why. There is a peripheral mention of "racist" in this section, but the core of KC's comment is 'There is no "due weight" to give to something which is only marginally related to the topic of this article'—that is a concrete assertion that is suitable for discussion on an article talk page. Johnuniq (talk) 10:15, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

That assertion by KC would be wrong given how many WP:reliable sources there are that specifically mention the interaction of brain size, intelligence, and race all together. Including the refs that were already in the sourced text that KillerChihuahua removed. BlackHades (talk) 10:30, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

BlackHades has been warned by me for 3RR and by another Admin concerning the ArbCom sanctions and advised to work out a consensus here before making any more controversial edits. Dougweller (talk) 10:27, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I would like to note that my reason for restoring the material before was because the dispute over racial differences in brain size is a noteworthy aspect of the race and intelligence debate and the IP's rationale for removal was premised on whether the claims were "valid" or not, rather than any legitimate policy claim. Looking further there may be some synthesis involved with some of the sources, but there are other sources that are clearly about the theory that differences in brain size indicate racial differences in intelligence. A section on brain size would certainly be appropriate in this article and not undue, but the material should be better sourced.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:46, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Removing these huge relevant sections is not helping this article. BlackHades (talk) 01:08, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Deleted Text Relevancy to this article.

“ Several studies have reported that races overlap significantly in brain size but differ in average brain size. The magnitude of these differences varies depending on the particular study and the methods used. In general, these studies have reported that East Asians have on average a larger brain size than whites who have on average a larger brain size than blacks. Other researchers have also found variation in average brain size between human groups, but concluded that this variation should be viewed as being based on biogeographic ancestry and independently of "race".

Wicherts writes that there is no reason to suppose that brain size is environmentally insensitive and that even if race differences in brain size are assumed to be entirely genetic in origin, they still leave 91–95% of racial IQ gap unaccounted for.

”

Disputed text above.

I'm assuming there's no objection that the deleted text in question meets WP:Verifiability as I've repeatedly stated it does and no one has suggested otherwise. So it seems the only question is whether the text in question is relevant or "marginally related" to this article as KillerChihuahua suggests. I would ask that editors review the references that was listed in the text that KillerChihuahua deleted which includes among others:

"The world database was summarized by Rushton (1995 pp 126-132, Table 6.6) from autopsies, endocranial volume, head measurements, and head measurements corrected for body size, and found in cm3 or equivalents: East Asians and their descendants = 1,364, Europeans and their descendants = 1,347, and Africans and their descendants = 1,267. The review found the overall mean for Asians to be 17cm3 more than that for Europeans and 97cm3 more than that for Africans. Mean IQ scores parallel those in average brain size, with Asians averaging an IQ of about 106, Whites averaging 100, Blacks averaging 85."

Rushton, J Philippe. (1997) Cranial size and IQ in Asian Americans from birth to age seven Intelligence 25(1). pg 7-20.

"Also, the varying magnitude of the mean difference between groups of white and black children on the 17 tests is related to the tests' loadings on g, on spatial ability, and the tests' correlations with head size."

Jensen, Arthur. (1994) Psychometric g related to differences in head size Personality and Individual Differences 17(5). pg 597-606.

"Sex combined brain cases from Asia averaged 1380 cm3, from Europe averaged 1362 cm3, and from Africa averaged 1276 cm3. With some measures of cognitive performance, analyses from international as well as US samples suggest that a parallel exists with the brain-size data such that Mongoloid populations average higher than Caucasoid and Negroid populations. Moreover, several studies have demonstrated a positive within-race correlation between head permimeter measured by tape and scores on IQ tests."

Rushton, J Philippe. (1991) Mongoloid-Caucasoid Differences in Brain Size from Military Samples Intelligence 15, 351-359.

These were the references in the text that KillerChihuahua deleted. How can KillerChihuahua make the claim that the text he deleted is not related to this article of race and intelligence when directly in the references of the text he deleted, there are studies compare brain size, intelligence, and race and their relationship to each other. Including those that he now says are "possibly acceptable". He doesn't have to agree with the references but it's clear that this text is relevant and should be in the article in one form or another. No one is saying that the references are true or not but its relevancy to this article is certainly there. If he has issues with the way it was worded, then he should have brought it up instead of doing a blanket complete deletion. Accusations that I'm violating WP:SYNTH and promoting racism when all I was doing was following WP:Neutral point of view and WP:Verfiability was completely unnecessary. BlackHades (talk) 12:09, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I see several problems with this revert by BlackHades (Do not remove relevant cited material that meets WP:Verifiability. Please understand that your personal opinions doesn't overrule countless reliable sources that absolutely considers it relevant and important to the discussion. Please see talk.)

I.

Individual brain size is highly heritable with a genetic correlation to total brain size ranging from 0.66 to 0.97. In a review of six MRI studies that reported genetic correlation to total brain size, 5 out of 6 studies showed a correlation above 0.89.

In a study of the head growth of 633 term-born children, it was shown that prenatal growth and growth during infancy were associated with subsequent IQ. The study's conclusion was that the brain volume a child achieves by the age of 1 year helps determine later intelligence. Within human populations, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) studies conducted to determine whether there is a relationship between brain size and a number of cognitive measures have "yielded inconsistent findings with correlations from 0 to 0.6, with most correlations 0.3 or 0.4.". For postmortem studies the correlation is about 0.15. McDaniel (2005) analyzed 37 MRI studies assessing brain volume and intelligence and found an average correlation of 0.33. Positive correlation was found in all age and sex groups. It concluded "it is very clear that brain volume and intelligence are related".

While the above meets WP:V, none of the sources connect "race" and brain size. It's only purpose here is to support of a specific point of view by propping up selected sources below (i.e., it's WP:SYNTH).

II.

The difference in average brain sizes varies widely from country to country. For instance, the average brain size of the average Maasai person is larger than the average brain size of the average "Caucasoid" person in Egypt. According to Z. Z. Cernovsky, Rushton's study shows that the average cranial capacity of North American blacks is similar to that of Caucasians from comparable climatic zones.

This section twists the source by phrasing and omission in order to advance specific POV (including a WP:CHERRY Rushton cite). It does not meet WP:V and is in direct violation of WP:NPOV. Here's what the source actually says (emphasis mine)...

Within a given racial group, cranial capacity varies depending on the climatic zone. For example, the American Indians are spread over a wide variety of climatic zones and show a corresponding variation in skull size: those from warmer climates have smaller cranial capacity. This pattern is also true for other racial groups. Beals et al. concluded, on the basis of extensive statistical analyses, that correlations of brain size to race are spurious: smaller crania are found in warmer climates, irrespective of race. In fact, Rushton's own tabular summaries of cranial data, based on Herskovits (1930), clearly show these trends. In Rushton's summaries (1990b: see Table 2), the average cranial capacity for North American blacks (1622 cm³) is similar to the average for Caucasians (1621 cm³) from comparable climatic zones. Caucasians from warmer zones such as Cairo (1502 cm³) were similar to some of the black Africans, for example, the Masai (1508 cm³). It is only by "pooling" the black North American data with data for blacks from countries within hot climatic zones (notorious for famine and infant malnutrition that impede brain growth) that Rushton obtained an illusory support for his "genetic" postulates.

III.

Several studies have reported that races overlap significantly in brain size but differ in average brain size. The magnitude of these differences varies depending on the particular study and the methods used. In general, these studies have reported that East Asians have on average a larger brain size than whites who have on average a larger brain size than blacks.

The first two cites are red herrings (they do not connect "intelligence" to brain weight) used to mask the undue weight being given the next three cites : Jensen, Rushton and Rushton.

IV.

Other researchers have also found variation in average brain size between human groups, but concluded that this variation should be viewed as being based on biogeographic ancestry and independently of "race".

This appears to be a complete fabrication. Here's what the two sources actually have to say (emphasis mine)...

The explanation of human brain size difference has historically been colored by a search for "the cause." This traditionally focused upon difference in mental ability or race. Neither has been shown to have any significant direct effect. The distribution indicates that racial means are actually reflections of secondary correlation with climate. For example, Native Americans have a common ancestry but almost the entire range of variation in cranial capacity. The cognitive model requires that mental function change not only the internal organization of the brain, but also its absolute size. It is not supported by any preponderance of direct evidence from either psychology or ethnology.

...

With an ever broader perspective, cognition is part of the answer in an indirect manner-through cultural inventions which led to occupation of the world's diversity of ecological zones. "The cause," in short, does not exist. Explaining the variation in human brain size requires a synthetic theory, portions of which best apply to given particulars of time and space.

3. Rushton's cranioracial variation is contradicted by evolutionary anthropology. Rushton (1990:786) takes cranial measurements from a study by Beals, Smith, and Dodd (1984) without mentioning that study's finding that while climate variables were strongly correlated with cranial variation, "race" and cranial variation had low correlations.

V.

Wicherts writes that there is no reason to suppose that brain size is environmentally insensitive and that even if race differences in brain size are assumed to be entirely genetic in origin, they still leave 91–95% of racial IQ gap unaccounted for.

This is not found in the two sources provided. Using the correct source we find more POV pushing by omision (any source is a good source if it can be mined for a "there is an IQ gap" quote) (emphasis mine)...

Rushton’s figures are based not on contemporary MRI measurements of white and gray matter volume, but rather on outdated external or postmortem cranial measurements. Given the correlation between cranial capacity as measured externally and intelligence of around .20 (Rushton & Ankney, 2009), the Black-White gap in brain size cannot explain much of the IQ gap. Even if cranial capacity had a causal effect on g, then the Black-White gap in brain size cannot explain more than: .6*.2*15 = 1.8 IQ points. If we were to believe that the IQ gap between Africans and European Whites is 33 IQ points (Lynn & Vanhanen, 2006), then the brain size gap could explain a staggering 1.8/33 = 5% of the IQ gap. Thus, even under these terms, 95% of the IQ gap is left unexplained by brain size. With a correlation of .33 between brain volume and IQ as based on modern techniques (McDaniel, 2005), the gap in brain size can explain only 2.98 IQ points or 9% of the IQ gap. However, we are not familiar with studies that used modern methods to measure brain size in both European Whites and Africans, and we are not familiar with any studies of the heritability of IQ and/or brain size among Africans. Although race differences in brain size are in line with Rushton’s hypothesis, his hypothesis fails to impress us.

...

Another problem with the brain size hypothesis lies with the fact that sex differences in brain size are larger than race differences, yet studies involving representative samples, broad cognitive test batteries, and sound statistical methods consistently fail to show a clear sex difference in g.

Refs

I am going to remove remainder the section pending a replacement that is better aligned with our policies and guidelines. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 12:56, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Regarding I: Here is the full quote of Hunt/Carlson's McDaniel (2005) cite:

Example of Going Beyond Counting Genetic Variance: Rushton (1995) maintained that one of the reasons for the White–African American disparity in IQ scores is that Whites have larger brain sizes than African Americans. Leaving aside the issue of whether or not one accepts this particular argument, the argument itself illustrates a useful principle. Differences in brain size are associated with intelligence (McDaniel, 2005). Rushton has stated a hypothesis about a biological mechanism, known to influence intelligence, that might explain the difference. Rushton’s claim for a racial disparity in brain sizes was based on exterior skull measures. Further studies, using modern imaging techniques, may provide a more sensitive test of the hypothesis. It would not be appropriate to enter into a detailed discussion here. Our point is simply that discussing this sort of claim is far more likely to increase our understanding of the disparity than is arguing about the percentage of variance associated with biological or environmental variables.

Reviewing the disputed content, it looks nothing like this high level overview, and appears to be using the fact that McDaniel was cited as an excuse to include content from McDaniel that was not referred to, contrary to policy and guidelines. I would fully support inclusion of content which properly summarizes the Hunt/Carlson (2007). That's not what we have here. aprock (talk) 22:30, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Regarding I: These studies, like McDaniel (2005), have been repeatedly mentioned in connection with the race and intelligence debate in reliable sources which makes it relevant. Including Hunt and Carlson (2007) which many editors here have already deemed a reliable source. Hunt and Carlson (2007) have also stated that Rushton's claim that brain size differences between races could be causing IQ gaps is a reasonable hypothesis that merits investigation. BlackHades (talk) 21:18, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Also regarding I: "Rushton (1995) maintained that one of the reasons for the White–African American disparity in IQ scores is that Whites have larger brain sizes than African Americans. Leaving aside the issue of whether or not one accepts this particular argument, the argument itself illustrates a useful principle. Differences in brain size are associated with intelligence (McDaniel, 2005). Rushton has stated a hypothesis about a biological mechanism, known to influence intelligence, that might explain the difference."---Hunt and Carlson (2007) BlackHades (talk) 21:18, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Regarding III: If preferred we can replace Rushton and Jensen refs with Lynn and Templer refs. The point is that enough WP:reliable sources exists that claim brain size gaps in the order of East Asians > Europeans > Africans and its possible relationship to intelligence that we cannot omit this information. Criticism of these studies should certainly be included as well but to omit this information entirely would not be fair weight. BlackHades (talk) 21:40, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Being repeatedly mentioned makes it relevant according to how it is mentioned. What you cannot do is observe that a source is cited, and then ignore the secondary source content and perform your own synthesis on the primary source, which is what appears to be happening here. Again, content which summarizes Hunt/Carlson fairly should be fine. That's not what we have here. I'm not really sure why you are re-quoting the content I already quoted. aprock (talk) 23:55, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not requoting. I never wrote this here. This was written before you wrote yours and someone moved my comments down here. BlackHades (talk) 00:04, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

BlackHades is correct, Aprock; he wrote his posts prior to yours, but unfortunately violated talk page guidelines and placed his comments within ArtifexMahem's post. I moved them out of AM's post, here; I placed them below yours as a matter of simple editing convenience. KillerChihuahua 00:09, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Ok, my comment still stands. The proposed McDaniel content sourced through Hunt/Carlson looks nothing like the actual citation to McDaniel that Hunt/Carlson make. As such, it is a not proper use of sources. aprock (talk) 00:10, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Individual brain size to intelligence is important to mention and is relevant to this article. As it's consistently referred to in sources that explore this topic. It's as relevant as the issue of individual IQ heritability. Which is also mentioned and relevant to this article. In what context it should be mentioned is certainly open to debate but this blanket mass deletion has been completely unconstructive and violates WP:NPOV. Also the average brain size difference between East Asians, Europeans, and Africans is mentioned in several WP:reliable sources and absolutely deserves due weight. As should WP:reliable sources that has criticism of these studies. BlackHades (talk) 09:18, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

"Considerations" paper

A good bit of content is being sourced to Considerations Relating to the Study of Group Differences in Intelligence, which is linked here. Does anyone here have access to this paper? KillerChihuahua 13:49, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Ok, have a copy of this and will be reading it to ensure it supports the bits in the article it is supposed to support. KillerChihuahua 02:17, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Removal of the existence of racial IQ gaps

It looks like KillerChihuahua now changed the following:

"IQ tests performed in the United States have consistently demonstrated a significant degree of variation between different racial groups, with the average score of those with African ancestry lower than that of European ancestry and the average score of those with East Asian ancestry being higher than that of European ancestry. While the existence of racial IQ gaps is well-documented and not subject to much dispute, there is no consensus among researchers as to their cause. Research into potential genetic causes for intellectual differences between races is controversial and has generated heated debate."

to this:

"One study performed in the United States indicated variation between different racial groups, with the average score of those with African ancestry lower than that of European ancestry and the average score of those with East Asian ancestry being higher than that of European ancestry. The study drew sharp criticism from Francis Collins, director of the genome program at the National Institutes of Health, as well as from a medical ethicist."

And then later decides he doesn't want this text at all and removes everything completely. Anyone that is well versed in this subject, regardless of whether they subscribe to the hereditarian or the environmentalist viewpoint, would clearly see that KillerChihuahua is POV pushing. Racial IQ gaps is fully acknowledged by both hereditarians and environmentalists. Nearly all of them. The APA in their report fully acknowledges these gaps exist. "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" also acknowledges the gap. As well as nearly every environmentalist cited in this article. From Flynn, Wicherts, and even extremists like Nisbett. This text has been in the article for several years and was never really disputed.

I've always had good intentions to get this article to NPOV. When there were disagreements with aprock for example, I put considerable effort to address concerns he had. Before adding transadoption studies of Koreans, I specifically asked for input and thoughts from other editors.

The fact that KillerChihuahua is allowed to POV push with impunity because he's an administrator and I'm told I'll be banned if I get in his way shows a very deep problem. Administrators should not be above the rules but apparently they are.

And if I'm going to be banned now just for expressing my concerns then so be it. BlackHades (talk) 23:31, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps my edit summary was unclear. The author of the study being cited actually said his paper "offered no view on race and intelligence"[16] and he's actually annoyed people are using it to talk about race and intelligence. If the author of a paper states it has zero bearing on race and intelligence, I'm inclined to believe the study is not an appropriate source for this article. KillerChihuahua 23:37, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

That's completely irrelevant. It would have better to add rather than remove something that has consensus. You could of asked any of the other editors here to put in a ref. The fact that racial IQ gaps exist is nearly universally accepted. Regardless of whether they subscribe to the hereditarian or environmentalist view. There is dispute over the cause of it but not that it exists. The entire premise of this whole article is on "why does racial IQ gap exists?" and you want to remove the acknowledgement that it even exists at all? BlackHades (talk) 23:50, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

It is entirely relevant that the source being used to support that assertion, which is in fact not universally accepted (except by certain racists and race supremacist groups) had nothing to do with the article, and in fact had zero bearing on race and intelligence in any way. This article is on probation. Any contentious content must be impeccably sourced. KillerChihuahua 23:54, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

KillerChihuahua claims that racial IQ gaps are "not universally accepted (except by certain racists and race supremacist groups) had nothing to do with the article, and in fact had zero bearing on race and intelligence in any way.". Do we really need more evidence that KillerChihuahua is POV pushing? BlackHades (talk) 00:08, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Misquoting someone out of context like this is a clear breach of the principle of decorum enumerated at ArbCom: WP:ARBR&I#Decorum. I think you need to step back. It appears that you are allowing frustration to get the upper hand. aprock (talk) 00:16, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not misquoting. And I'm pretty sure POV pushing would be a breach of ArbCom as well. BlackHades (talk) 00:29, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps BH was not intentionally misrepresenting what I said. I'll try to rephrase: The source has nothing to do with race and intelligence. Also, your assertion that the points made in the paragraph are 'universally accepted' is demonstrably false; there is dispute. If you feel I have violated ArbCom sanctions, WP:AE is the place to file; I caution you, however, that all parties' actions will be examined. KillerChihuahua 00:34, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Given that the APA and Mainstream Science on Intelligence both acknowledged the existence of racial IQ gaps, along with every environmentalist in the article that I'm aware of in this article, explain how it's false. You stated that racial gaps is only accepted by certain racists and race supremacist groups correct? BlackHades (talk) 00:43, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

As a side note, the correct phrasing is "you could have asked" not "you could of asked". The former is a suggestion for what I could have done; the second is simply poor English. I apologize if this seems at all snarky; this is a pet peeve of mine, and it is especially irritating to see in a conversation about intelligence. KillerChihuahua 23:58, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

KC, the existence of a racial IQ gap is well-documented and is one of the main points of discussion in the modern controversy so it is worth mentioning in the lede. Also, in removing that material you also removed well-sourced consensus material in the second half of the paragraph. The other material in the lede was undoubtedly supported by sources in the article body. I am sure you can find some more in the article body that support the first half of the paragraph as well.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:59, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Not sure what your point is; that is still in the article. I removed a paragraph which was about one study, which had nothing to do with race and intelligence and therefore should not be included in this article. KillerChihuahua 00:02, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

KC, the lede is a summary of material already included in the article so it was not about "one study", but the entire body of studies as supported in the article body. The sources in the lede are provided simply to back up particularly contentious claims. The source you refer to that mentioned Lahn was only specifically backing up the claim: "Research into potential genetic causes for intellectual differences between races is controversial and has generated heated debate." The material preceding that is all supported by sources in the article below.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:27, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Are we talking about the same edit? Please post a diff so we aren't talking past each other, thanks. KillerChihuahua 00:36, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, you rewrote the material in the lede first and then removed it entirely. The consensus-wording you removed and which was what the sources were there to support was:

Research into potential genetic causes for intellectual differences between races is controversial and has generated heated debate. Some researchers fear that the findings could be misused to perpetuate racial stereotypes, while others contend that the politicization of the field threatens to stifle important avenues of research.

All of that was supported by the sourcing provided in the lede, and was put in following a discussion several months ago on this talk page. The material preceding it was all there before the material quoted above and the relevant sourcing were added.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:58, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Ok then yes, we're talking about the same edits. No, that was not supported by the source. KillerChihuahua 02:01, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes it is supported. There was a very long lengthy discussion to add that specific line to the article. Review it in archives. And what's your reasoning to remove everything before that sentence? I asked for a source anywhere on the article (or any reliable source period) that disputes the fact that racial IQ gaps exist. You've yet to respond. BlackHades (talk) 02:54, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

No, that is not how it works. I don't have to prove a negative; the onus is on the person desiring to add content to source it adequately, and even that is a little backwards. The optimum is to read the source material and write the article based on what that says. However, if you think certain content should be in the article, the burden falls to you to provide that sourcing, and gain consensus for your additions. The sources must meet WP:RS, and the content must be within policy. No one needs to go find sourcing contrary to what you want in the article. KillerChihuahua 03:01, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Just to clarify. Your position on the existence of racial IQ gaps is "not universally accepted (except by certain racists and race supremacist groups)". Is this correct? BlackHades (talk) 03:32, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

This is talk page misuse. Stop asking about what you think are my personal views. I'm not your friend and we're not talking over coffee, this talk page is for discussing how to improve the article, not trying to learn what anyone's personal views are or are not. My position is null. Be done, now. KillerChihuahua 03:42, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Your personal view is relevant whether you want to admit it or not. As it's clearly having an effect on the way you're removing massive amount of content and affecting the level of neutrality of the article. If it really is your position that the existence of IQ gaps is "not universally accepted except by racists and race supremacist groups" then it certainly has a direct impact on the way you readily remove content that has scientific consensus. Such as that racial IQ gaps does exist. There are a lot of disagreements hereditarians and environmentalists in the field have. As well as among editors here. But one thing that was never in dispute was that racial IQ gaps exists. The cause of it certainly has major dispute but not the existence. The APA considers the Black-White IQ gap as one of the "knowns" in their "knowns and unknowns" report. There are several published work that also highlights this fact. BlackHades (talk) 05:25, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

"African Americans, The relatively low mean of the distribution of African-American intelligence test scores has been discussed for many years. Although studies using different tests and samples yield a range of results, the Black mean is typically about one standard deviation (about 15 points) below that of Whites."

American Psychological Association. Task Force Report. 1994. Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns

"The relationship between IQ scores and elementary cognitive task (ECT) performance is well established, with variance on each largely reflecting the general factor of intelligence. Also ubiquitous are Black–White mean differences on IQ and measures of academic success, like grade point average (GPA)"

Pesta, Bryan. (2008) Black–White differences on IQ and grades Intelligence 36. pg 323-329.

"The 1.1 standard deviation difference in average IQ between Blacks and Whites in the United States is not in itself a matter of empirical dispute"

Rushton, J Philippe. (2005) Thirty Years of Research on race..

"It is widely accepted that race differences in intelligence exist.”

Lynn, Richard. (2006) Race Differences in Intelligence

"The bell curve for whites is centered roughly around IQ 100; the bell curve for American blacks roughly around 85"

Mainstream Science on Intelligence BlackHades (talk) 05:25, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

KC, the lede is a summary of the article. Just look at any part of the article concerning the racial IQ gap and you will find the sources you desire I am sure. The lede is just there to summarize material that is already sourced in the article body. As to the rest of that paragraph, we had a long discussion here where you can review the evidence and argumentation that led to the wording in the lede. The material that you altered and then removed from the lede was well-sourced and accurate.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 04:13, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm well aware of WP:LEAD, TDA. I'm not sure why you keep telling me about it; surely you know I know about leads. Have you a suggestion to make to improve the article? Have you read the lead as it now exists? KillerChihuahua 04:17, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

My suggestion is that you restore the well-sourced and accurate wording that emerged out of talk page consensus as it was before you made any changes to it. Your claim that the material was not well-sourced is mistaken and was addressed thoroughly during that earlier discussion. Also, consider that I would not feel a need to remind you of the relevant guideline if I thought your edits were like those expected of someone who had knowledge of it.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 05:36, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I concurr. BlackHades (talk) 06:19, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

1. My view is irrelevant, as is yours and everyone else's. We write what the reliable sources say, not what we think - that would be a blog, not an encyclopedia.
2. As far as restoring "well sourced content" I've repeatedly quoted the source itself, which is that it has nothing to do with race and intelligence. That is why I removed it - you might as well source that content to a Mother Goose book, for all the support it gave the content it was supposedly supporting. The only thing we could possibly glean from that source is that racists tried to use it, and I could source that, very easily, from that source, but I personally think it would be WP:UNDUE to report that mis-use of that paper here.

I sincerely hope we are done discussing that particular source and its use in this article. KillerChihuahua 14:16, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

No we are not, because you are not even remotely representing that source accurately by any measure. The only instance where you quoted it was earlier above in this thread, to cherry-pick Lahn's statement about his study, which is not only completely irrelevant to the material being backed by the source but doesn't even show understanding of Lahn's own statement. The source is very much about race and intelligence and Lahn himself was very clear that not only did he not have an issue with his research being used as part of the debate, but that he was inclined towards the hereditarian view himself.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 15:08, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

KC, reliable sources says racial IQ gaps exists. You're been provided reliable sources that explicitly state so. Please stop POV pushing. BlackHades (talk) 23:33, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

KC, you appear to have stopped responding back. And haven't addressed the concerns raised by either The Devil's Advocate or me. As you've stopped responding, and since no one else has objected to this text, I will soon move to restore this text barring no further objections. BlackHades (talk) 22:02, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

What text do you wish to restore, specifically? — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 22:10, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Black is referring to the lede material, which stated:

IQ tests performed in the United States have consistently demonstrated a significant degree of variation between different racial groups, with the average score of those with African ancestry lower than that of European ancestry and the average score of those with East Asian ancestry being higher than that of European ancestry. While the existence of racial IQ gaps is well-documented and not subject to much dispute, there is no consensus among researchers as to their cause. Research into potential genetic causes for intellectual differences between races is controversial and has generated heated debate. Some researchers fear that the findings could be misused to perpetuate racial stereotypes, while others contend that the politicization of the field threatens to stifle important avenues of research.

The first portion was a normal summary of sourced material in the article body and the second portion about the controversy of the research was directly supported by multiple sources and was also a summary of sourced material in the article body.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:40, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

What supporting sources are proposed for this addition, specifically? — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 00:48, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Please review the above, where The Devil's Advocate and I have addressed this to KillerChihuahua. BlackHades (talk) 02:14, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't want to get involved here, but here's a quick note from a mathematician. The term "racial IQ gap" is an abomination, as it almost certainly doesn't describe the phenomenon accurately. A gap isn't just a difference between two average values. It means that the individual with the lowest IQ from the high average IQ 'race' still has a higher IQ than the individual with the highest IQ from the low average IQ 'race'. For the 'black-white gap' that would imply that every perpetually unemployed 'white' illiterate alcoholic has a higher IQ than the US president. I doubt that this is a technical term. It sounds like a political fighting term that should never be used in Wikipedia's voice. Hans Adler 22:43, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

The term "racial IQ gap" is repeatedly used in reliable sources. But if this is the only dispute we can change the term to "gaps between average IQ scores of different racial groups". But we might be getting overly technical here. BlackHades (talk) 02:08, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I haven't responded to the exact same question I've already answered multiple times. I fail to see the point in having to re-affirm that the source which was used stated clearly it had "no bearing on race and intelligence" and therefore the content was removed. I hope I am now done, but if not I suppose I'll have to repeat this again and again until it sinks in. It is not a suitable source for this article, full stop. KillerChihuahua 02:20, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

You're completely ignoring what The Devil's Advocate said. Instead of giving a generic response that addresses absolutely nothing he said, read his statement again and properly address his statements. Furthermore, you completely ignored my requests. And haven't responded back to any of the sources I listed for you. BlackHades (talk) 02:40, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

It would be helpful to give a summary which includes the proposed text, its position in the article, and the precise sources. Comments like "Please review the above" and "sources I listed" are not useful when a topic is contested, particularly in a section of 24K bytes. Rather than a list, the proposed source or sources is needed. Johnuniq (talk) 03:02, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Disputed and proposed text is at the very top highlighted in blue. The text is a summary of the article per WP:LEAD. Sources are listed in the general article which KillerChihuahua seemed to acknowledge at some point saying "Not sure what your point is; that is still in the article." but he seems to be ignoring guidelines for WP:LEAD. He keeps talking about one source that was only related to one line in the mass of text he deleted, which was already accurately represented anyways and this one single line in question was already the result of consensus through talk earlier which is in archives. Which it doesn't appear he's read or gave a single comment about this consensus. This one line also is unrelated to the mass of other text he deleted, which he doesn't appear to give any reason for its deletion. BlackHades (talk) 03:28, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

The best way forward would be as suggested above: "It would be helpful to give a summary which includes the proposed text, its position in the article, and the precise sources." Please. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 03:46, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Already done. Proposed text is highlighted in blue at the very top. The Devil's Advocate also directly responded to you with the proposed text. But I'll copy and paste it again here:

"IQ tests performed in the United States have consistently demonstrated a significant degree of variation between different racial groups, with the average score of those with African ancestry lower than that of European ancestry and the average score of those with East Asian ancestry being higher than that of European ancestry. While the existence of racial IQ gaps is well-documented and not subject to much dispute, there is no consensus among researchers as to their cause. Research into potential genetic causes for intellectual differences between races is controversial and has generated heated debate."

Position is obviously the lead as it was removed from lead. Sources are in the body of the text as it's a summary per the guidelines of WP:LEAD. But I provided KillerChihuahua of even more sources if he's still doubting the validity of the text which I'll copy and paste again below. The one line that KillerChihuahua seems overly focused on would be the "Research into potential genetic causes for intellectual differences between races is controversial and has generated heated debate." line which was already thoroughly discussed and reached a consensus through talk earlier which can be reviewed in archives here.

"African Americans, The relatively low mean of the distribution of African-American intelligence test scores has been discussed for many years. Although studies using different tests and samples yield a range of results, the Black mean is typically about one standard deviation (about 15 points) below that of Whites."

American Psychological Association. Task Force Report. 1994. Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns

"The relationship between IQ scores and elementary cognitive task (ECT) performance is well established, with variance on each largely reflecting the general factor of intelligence. Also ubiquitous are Black–White mean differences on IQ and measures of academic success, like grade point average (GPA)"

Pesta, Bryan. (2008) Black–White differences on IQ and grades Intelligence 36. pg 323-329.

"The 1.1 standard deviation difference in average IQ between Blacks and Whites in the United States is not in itself a matter of empirical dispute"

Rushton, J Philippe. (2005) Thirty Years of Research on race..

"It is widely accepted that race differences in intelligence exist.”

Lynn, Richard. (2006) Race Differences in Intelligence

"The bell curve for whites is centered roughly around IQ 100; the bell curve for American blacks roughly around 85"

Mainstream Science on Intelligence BlackHades (talk) 04:08, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

@Artifex and John There is no "proposed text" as it were, since that implies a new change. Rather, there is an absurdly misguided deletion of consensus wording and no meaningful defense of said deletion. KC has made numerous errors with regards to that material that suggest there was no careful consideration of policy and sourcing on KC's part. We shouldn't have to re-hash what was already discussed in depth to someone who has already been shown the relevant discussion and demonstrated no willingness to further justify the changes beyond an obviously misguided objection. I am adding the material back in and KC should instead be explaining to us why the material should be removed when it is well-sourced and previously got a non-partisan consensus from multiple editors.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 04:28, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

The citations in the text you restored don't appear to support the statements therein. Can you please show where the Regalado article supports any of the material in the first two sentences to which it is attached as a supporting citation? Guettarda (talk) 04:56, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

It is the lede so citations aren't necessary for every statement as anyone who is familiar with the relevant policies would know. The first two sentences were there, without contention, well before the other material was added because they accurately summarize sourced material in the article body. I explained this already in this very discussion. The section of the article entitled "group differences" is one area where you can find all the necessary sourcing and material that supports the summary provided in the first two sentences. I added the sourced material after those sentences some time later per a consensus decision on this talk page that I have already linked to in this discussion.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 05:31, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Citations aren't necessary in the lead. But once you include them, they need to support the material to which they are attached. When you restore material to the article, you're responsible for it. You added the material. It has sources, which makes it appear as if the statements are supported by the sources. Your edit, therefore, is misleading. That's the problem with blindly reverting. I have already warned you about misrepresenting sources. You can't be so cavalier in your attitude towards factual accuracy. Guettarda (talk) 05:42, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

They aren't "attached" to the first two sentences and there is no requirement for some sort of "buffer citation" just to distinguish what is being supported by a given citation in the lede. If it would make you feel better we can add one after the first two sentences, but none of your arguments support deleting the paragraph in its entirety. There was no "blind reverting" on my part, just restoration of appropriate material based on policy and sourcing.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 05:59, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, they are attached. You obviously don't understand established practice of citing sources. If this is a mistake, you need to learn from it and adapt your editing practices. You will never learn from your mistakes if you respond in this aggressive fashion every time someone points out that you have made a mistake. Back home we have a great expression for this, "wrong and strong". Guettarda (talk) 15:33, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Guettarda, could you please review the list of sources I provided above? From the APA, Mainstream Science on Intelligence, Pesta, Rushton, Lynn. Also please review the "US Test Scores" section of the article. If it'll end this discussion, we can add one of sources as a citation. Enough sources has been provided to support the text. With not a single source anywhere in the article that contradicts it. It's time to move on. BlackHades (talk) 06:43, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Even more sources. "The existence of sometimes large group differences in intelligence is as well-established as any fact in the social sciences". Gottfredson, Linda. 1994. Egalitarian Fiction and Collective Fraud Society 31(3) pg 53-59. There's been enough sources provided. Not a single counter source has been provided. We're moving on. This is being restored. BlackHades (talk) 08:28, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

1. Sources without context are meaningless. 2. "This is being restored" is inconsistent with the spirit of Wikipedia editing. (This is especially important on an article subject to arbcomm sanctions.) Please re-think your approach here. Guettarda (talk) 15:29, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Removal of material on race, malnutrition, and intelligence

Winick, Meyer, and Harris (1975) studied Korean infants adopted by American families and the effects of malnourishment on IQ. They found an average IQ of 102 for Korean children that were severely malnourished as infants, IQ of 106 for those that were poorly nourished as infants, and IQ of 112 for those that were well nourished as infants.

KillerChihuahua claims this statement is not related to this article and has removed it. Despite the fact that the study talks about race, intelligence, and nutrition (a possible environmental cause of IQ gaps). Despite the fact that this article has a section called "health and nutrition" that explores the role malnourishment may be causing IQ gaps. This study has been heavily cited by secondary sources by both hereditarians and environmentalists. Including here and here. Hereditarians have cited it as evidence that malnourished Korean children still have average to above average IQ. Environmentalists have cited it as clear evidence that malnutrition causes IQ gaps.

This is another very clear example of KillerChihuahua POV pushing and removing sections of relevant, cited, WP:verifiability information from this article. He has remained hostile and uncooperative. Has so far ignored any suggestions and explanations given. A continued "my way or the highway" attitude. This article needs to be restored back before KillerChihuahua started edit warring and POV pushing. With specific issues being raised and discussed before removing relevant cited WP:verifiability information. BlackHades (talk) 23:25, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Reviewing the first supporting source you present, the Winick cite occurs in Section 7: Mean Race–IQ Differences and Transracial Adoption Studies. Reviewing the wikipedia article as it currently reads, that specific section data is summarized in the article as: "Studies on Korean infants adopted by European families have consistently shown a higher IQ than the European average," along with six other sentences and a table. It's not clear how much more data you want here, but you seem to be trying to expand raw data. That approach is not supported by policy and guidelines, and has been symptomatic of past editors pursuing a preferred POV. Instead of trying to insert raw data from primary sources, allow me to suggest you look for the highest quality secondary sources, and summarize them. aprock (talk) 23:58, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

This study is different than the others. As it combines race, intelligence, and nutrition which none of the other studies does. So it would be unique in that sense. It expands the "nutrition" issue brought up earlier in "health and nutrition". Also none of the reasons you stated was the reason KillerChihuahua gave for removal. His reason was not it was not even related to this article. This was invalid for removal. BlackHades (talk) 00:40, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Again, the way to approach content is summarize high quality reliable secondary sources. Advocating for primary sources is going to get you no where. aprock (talk) 04:49, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Did I ever give the impression I wanted otherwise? This is in secondary sources. It was being summarized. This is different than simply stating "Studies on Korean infants adopted by European families have consistently shown a higher IQ than the European average", per the reasons I stated above. BlackHades (talk) 05:17, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

There are two problems here. First, Ruston and Jensen is not a high quality secondary source. They are two of the most controversial authors in this domain. Second, what appears to be happening here is that large sections of their paper have been quoted verbatim in this wiki article. There is a distinction between quoting verbatim and summarizing. Likewise a distinction between using high quality secondary sources, and using sources embroiled in controversy. I suggest that if you turn away from those at the center of the controversy any use sources outside that central clique of researchers (on both sides). The Hunt/Carlson (2007) source is an excellent example of a high quality secondary source. Ruston/Jensen (2005), not so much. aprock (talk) 16:01, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

The summary was more based from the secondary source of Lynn. Lynn seems to be currently underrepresented in this article. With the source I added seemingly being the only one that uses Lynn. In regards to using high quality secondary sources. I certainly agree with that. And I would approve the use of more Hunt/Carlson in this article.

But I'm not sure that's what the issue is here. The issue here being, was KillerChihuahua's reason for removal a valid reason? His reason being that this line had nothing to do with the article. You've yet to defend his reasoning so would it be correct to assume you find his reason invalid? If I'm misjudging here, I apologize. I'm just trying to figure out where we are. Now if his reason was invalid, are we exploring other reasons why this line shouldn't be in the article? Would this be the current point of contention? Which we can certainly open for discussion. I just want to make sure we're on the same page here. BlackHades (talk) 23:21, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Lynn is another highly controversial active researcher in the domain, and can hardly be considered a high quality secondary source. Per WP:BURDEN, it's up to the person who wishes to add the content to build consensus for it. Personally, I don't see how laundry lists of test scores improves the article. aprock (talk) 03:21, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

I highly doubt you would consider any secondary hereditarian source as high quality as this isn't the view you subscribe you. Whether Rushton, Jensen, Lynn, or Gottfredson. Per WP:Burden, it would be my responsibility to show that it meets WP:Verifiability when I add the text. Which I've done. After this is done, any editor that wishes to remove the material is obligated to articulate specific problems that would justify its exclusion. KillerChihuahua has not met this obligation. BlackHades (talk) 06:02, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

WP:V is not the only policy that wikipedia operates under. Rushton/Jensen (2005) is a highly cited source in the article, and I think most of the citations are proper. I would go as far as saying that with respect to summarizing hereditarian research, it is a one of the best sources available. That this cadre of researchers are not mainstream is not something that I, or any other editor determines. This is determined by the scientific community at large. I understand that you feel strongly about promoting the hereditarian viewpoint. I honestly think you'll have better luck winning consensus if you move away from such controversial sources and turn to less involved authors like Hunt, Dreary, Mackintosh, etc. These authors are not entrenched in the decades old debate, and offer a high level, fairly neutral perspectives on much of what has come out of the last century of research. I think you'd be hard pressed to label any of those authors as in one camp or the other. aprock (talk) 22:36, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

You're completely misjudging me. I don't feel strongly about promoting the hereditarian viewpoint. I care about balance and NPOV in this and any article. There are repeated attempts by some to do POV pushing through omission. This is what I strongly object it. Whether it's removing relevant reliable sources that supports either the hereditarian or environmental viewpoint. There is certainly a strong effort by some editors currently to systematically remove relevant hereditarian sources and text from this article one by one. This is what I'm against. And I would be against it if the opposite were true as well to remove relevant environmental sources.

But we're starting to stray from the issue now. Do you agree or disagree with KillerChihuahua's stated reason that the text in question is not related to this article? You seem to avoid this question each time I ask. And to your statements that there's enough other Korean adoption studies listed that this doesn't need to be there, I don't think this is a valid reason. There were 4 Black adoption studies listed and being summarized and 4 Korean adoption studies listed and summarized. Since 1 Korean adoption study is now removed, is it now okay to remove one of the Black adoption studies? This removal made no sense and KillerChihuahua's reason for removal was invalid. He doesn't appear to be defending it either as he's yet to join the debate here and no one else has defended his reasoning for removal. BlackHades (talk) 15:31, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

We're dealing with an article that is almost 100% a he said, she said with respect to the hereditarian hypothesis, and your ideas of WP:NPOV appear to involve turning to the most controversial researchers in the field to support content. You can call it whatever you like. My advice still stands; you'll find much better consensus for using sources outside of that small clique. aprock (talk) 15:55, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Your advice is irrelevant in this particular situation. WP:NPOV states "representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." You've yet to lay down a specific reason why this particular 1 out of 4 studies should be removed. What separates this study from the other 4 as grounds for removal? BlackHades (talk) 21:57, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

There is a fine balance between enthusiasm for a topic and excessive zeal. Frequent and combative talk page posting is not helpful since articles are constructed with no deadline, and this article has swung between extremes over the last couple of years, so what is the urgency now? Given how recent discussions have played out, it's likely that behavior surrounding this page will be raised at WP:AE which, if only for tactical reasons, would suggest that "best practice" should be employed here (see WP:TPG). The first paragraph in the comment above needs more attention to previous discussion concerning the removed text, with collaborative comments to show how that text complies with policy and why points favoring its removal are invalid. The second paragraph is totally off topic for this page. Please stop making personal comments. Johnuniq (talk) 00:01, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

KillerChihuahua's reason given was "Trim yet more which is about nourishment and not race. If you starve kids, they don't get to be as intelligent, but that has nothing to do with race". Given that the text is question is about race, intelligence, and nutrition. Would his specific reason be valid or invalid reasoning for removal? BlackHades (talk) 00:47, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Given his reasoning, I'm curious as to why he didn't remove the sections in the article that was specifically devoted to nutrition and intelligence only without race. Such as "Environmental factors including lead exposure,[66] breast feeding,[68] and nutrition[69][70] can significantly affect cognitive development and functioning. For example, iodine deficiency causes a fall, on average, of 12 IQ points.[71] Such impairments may sometimes be permanent, sometimes be partially or wholly compensated for by later growth. The first two years of life is the critical time for malnutrition, the consequences of which are often irreversible and include poor cognitive development, educability, and future economic productivity." If we're going to use his line of reasoning for removal, how would this line be relevant to the article? BlackHades (talk) 00:55, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

From what I can see of the study it does not directly mention race and intelligence, though such studies have been mentioned in secondary sources on this topic, though I have only found new articles and studies by hereditarians. Race and IQ, a collection of works by Ashley Montagu, offers a substantial amount of material regarding malnutrition's connection with this subject and he was a well-respected authority on the subject of race. That source would be of better use in this article.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:12, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

The comment above starting "I highly doubt you would consider any secondary hereditarian source as high quality" misses a vital point—an independent and secondary source by definition cannot be described as "hereditarian". A source which has an identifiable POV is not suitable for the purpose envisaged. The remainder of the comment is also off the mark: a lot more than "verifiable" is required to justify material—see WP:NPOV. Johnuniq (talk) 11:11, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

You're mischaracterizing WP:NPOV. WP:NPOV is "representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." It doesn't mean "only provide sources that has a middle position on the topic." The hereditarian view IS a significant view in the field and therefore should be fairly and proportionately represented. As well as the environmental view. Aprock specifically brought up WP:Burden. This is a subsection of WP:Verifiability. Which this statement meets the requirement of. After the text that meets this requirement is added, if an editor now decides to remove it, like KillerChihuahua has done, he now has the obligation to articulate specific problems that would justify its exclusion from Wikipedia as stated in WP:Verifiability which writes "any editor who then removes the material has an obligation to articulate specific problems that would justify its exclusion from Wikipedia." KillerChihuahua never stated NPOV, or undue weight, NOR, or other reasons. His stated reason for removal was that it has nothing to do with the article. So the question is, was KillerChihuahua's reason for removal valid or not? Neither you, nor aprock, nor anyone else seem to be defending KillerChihuahua's reason for removal. You haven't uttered a word about KillerChihuahua's stated reason for removal and neither has aprock. It's getting quite clear that KillerChihuahua's stated reason for removal was invalid and hence failed to meet his obligation for removal. BlackHades (talk) 12:43, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Go away for a year or so, the editors change, the arguments remain. We're still arguing over/mixing heredity and hereditarian and standardized IQ testing (which reflects societal norms) as a method attempting to quantify intelligence, and intelligence. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 01:22, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

BlackHades, you must have missed in WP:BURDEN where is stated:The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material..." (emphasis in original) which means you, as the one desiring to add or restore, need to find a source. Then you need to gain consensus that the source is reliable, and that it supports your desired content. KillerChihuahua 02:30, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Don't mischaracterize WP:Burden. You must have missed this "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and is satisfied by providing a reliable source that directly supports the material." (emphasis mine) My burden that it meets the requirement of reliable published source is met. Note that no one here has agreed with your reasoning for removal. Not one person has supported your reasoning that it has nothing to do with the article. You completely ignored YOUR obligation for removal which states "any editor who then removes the material has an obligation to articulate specific problems that would justify its exclusion from Wikipedia." You have failed this obligation. This was an invalid removal. BlackHades (talk) 02:49, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

This discussion appears to have reached an impasse. It's been explained to you several times that there are multiple policies that are relevant. As discussed above, the content in the reliable source is already adequately summarized in the article. If you want to change the content please feel free to make the edit, or propose an edit on the talk page. If your only goal is to gather support against KC's edit, I think at this point that would fall into the realm of disruptive editing. Until you come up with some constructive changes according to policy and principles laid out by WP:ARBR&I, there is little reason to discuss this further. aprock (talk) 03:30, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes there are multiple policies. You bring up WP:BURDEN which I already met the requirement of. Has KillerChihuahua met his requirement for removal? No. As already explained. You've yet to defend KillerChihuahua's reason for removal and simply ignore it each time I've asked. Then you bounce around with other possible reasoning which really just appear to amount to WP:I just don't like it. You don't address what makes this 1 particular study different from the others. Why should this study be omitted but not the others? What specifically makes this study different? There were previously 4 Black adoption studies listed and summarized and 4 Korean adoption studies listed and summarized. KillerChihuahua has removed 1 Korean adoption study with the improper reason that it's not related to this article. You haven't defended his reasoning, and gave no reasons why this particular study out of all the studies listed, is different and should be excluded. If anything, this would violate due/undue weight as now there's 4 Black adoption studies listed and now 3 Korean adoption studies listed. Why would this be preferable? The reason there's an impasse is that you continually avoid directly responding to my questions and concerns. And instead, respond back unrelated to anything I asked or address any of the concerns I've raised. Please respond to my questions and concerns raised so I don't have to repeat them over and over. BlackHades (talk) 03:50, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Has KillerChihuahua met his requirement for removal? 1. It's her, not his. 2. At the very start of this section you wrote KillerChihuahua claims this statement is not related... So yes, she has "met [her] requirement". Now you need to do your part. Guettarda (talk) 04:15, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I apologize I didn't know it was her. As far as my part, my part has already been met as I've cited sources here and here. Which invalidates KillerChihuahua's reason that the text in question "has nothing to do with race" as it very clearly has to do with race. And no one yet has argued otherwise. BlackHades (talk) 04:22, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Citing sources isn't the same as addressing concerns. So no, you need to address the specific concerns expressed. And, um, your links point to Rushton and Lynn...you do realise that their work is widely dismissed as racist, right? Guettarda (talk) 04:50, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

KillerChihuahua claimed that the text in question has nothing to do with race. I provided reliable sources that meets WP:Verifiability that states otherwise. So I already specifically addressed the concerns raised by KillerChihuahua. Neither KillerChihuahua, nor anyone else, has yet made a single attempt to defend the stated reason for deletion. If anyone wants to defend KillerChihuahua's reason for deletion, please do. But so far no one has, including KillerChihuahua herself. The WP:I don't like it and WP:I didn't hear that is starting to get old.

In regards to Rushton and Lynn, their position is a significant view in the field. That some people might want to dismiss it as "racist" is irrelevant. Per WP:NPOV, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources must be represented fairly and proportionally. Might I note that the only survey done to assess the position of the field, the Snyderman & Rothman poll, shows the all environmental viewpoint to be a heavy minority at 15%. Some people are trying to act like this is the mainstream view when there is absolutely no evidence that it is. In fact there is evidence to the contrary. That Jensen's position IS the mainstream view. "An overwhelming majority also believe that individual genetic inheritance contributes to variations in IQ within the white community, and a smaller majority express the same view about the black-white and SES differences in IQ. While the private consensus among IQ experts has shifted to meet Jensen's “controversial” views, the public impression of their views has not moved at all.” Gottfredson, Linda. (1994) Egalitarian Fiction and Collective Fraud Society 31(3). pg 53-59. BlackHades (talk) 07:01, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

You can't justify them by citing their close collaborators. Even if these were independent sources, it doesn't invalidate my point - whether they're right or wrong, Rushton's and Lynn's views are outside the mainstream. We write mainstream articles. We can't do that if we treat mainstream and non-mainstream sources equally. Guettarda (talk) 13:42, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Another secondary source.

"The three studies of Asian adoptees found that, despite often adverse preadoption experiences, these groups did relatively well on IQ tests in childhood. The largest study (Winick, Meyer, & Harris, 1975) was based on 141 Korean girls who had been adopted as infants or toddlers into US homes and were currently of elementary school age. For 111 of these children, IQ tests were available from school records. The average IQ was 107."

Loehlin, John. (2000) Group Differences in Intelligence "Handbook of Intelligence" pg 176-193. BlackHades (talk) 11:41, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this is a secondary source. But it doesn't appear to address the intersection of race and IQ. It (seems to) address IQ within a specific ethnic group. The source itself needs to clearly show the connection. And it says nothing about malnutrition, which is the point discussed in the text you highlighted at the start of the article. Guettarda (talk) 13:42, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect. Did you review the source? The entire section of pgs 176-193 has to with group differences and IQ. First between men and women. Then IQ differences between racial groups which this quote is from. It goes into great depth into racial IQ differences. And to your statement "it says nothing about malnutrition". What do you think "adverse preadoption experiences" is suppose to mean? BlackHades (talk) 13:49, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

This is precisely the problem I'm talking about. If I need to review the source to get the point, you haven't met your obligation per WP:BURDEN. You need to work from sources to explain how the content you want to restore is relevant to the article. This is not about whether you're right or wrong, it's about what you need to do in order to move forward. Guettarda (talk) 15:24, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I provided you the source and clearly explained it to you. You claimed it had nothing to do with race when you're clearly wrong. The quote was taken from the section of the book titled "Racial and Ethnic Differences: Genetic or Environmental?". You're still going to claim it has nothing to do with race? BlackHades (talk) 22:31, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

The last bit of the quote is as important as the first bit (all emphasis mine)...

For 111 of these children, IQ tests were available from school records. The average IQ was 107 — presumably somewhat inflated by norm shifts. Given the varying and unspecified IQ tests involved, a precise adjustment cannot be made, but if we assume that the typical test norms were 10-to-15 years old, this figure should be adjusted downward about 4 IQ points.

The preceding paragraph is also illuminating...

A second adoption study, which obtained rather different results, compared 26 Black—Black and 20 Black—White children adopted into Black or White adoptive homes (Moore. 1986). All children were placed in their adoptive home by the age of 2 years and were given a standard IQ test (WISC) at ages 7 to 10. The Black—Black and Black—White children adopted into White homes can be compared with the corresponding groups in the Minnesota transracial study. After mean IQs are adjusted for age of norms, the mean was 108.7 for 9 Black—Black children adopted into White homes and 107.2 for 14 Black—White children similarly adopted compared with the corresponding 91.4 and 105.4 obtained at the original testing In Minnesota. The samples in the Moore study are quite small, of course, but as the data stand, the Black—Black group is substantially higher in average IQ than the corresponding Minnesota group, and there is no evidence of a difference in IQ between the Black—Black and the Black—White children.

I fail to see the point behind choosing to quote partially quote from the source if the inflated Asian scores are below the normalized Black-Black and Black-White scores from a study discussed on the exact same page. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 15:08, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

The Black studies you speak of is ALREADY in this article. Why are you bringing this up? Can you please try to stay on point. Given that you are strongly advocating omitting relevant Korean adoption studies that meets WP:Verifiability, I assume you'll feel it's justified that we remove these Black adoption studies from the article as well? Otherwise, it's just very hypocritical. These arguments to omit this study is just all over the map, with obscure and ever changing reasoning, which amounts to nothing more than WP:I just don't like it. BlackHades (talk) 22:44, 12 February 2013 (UTC)\

The fact that you just brought up the Black studies from the same chapter now further bolsters my argument. That the text in question IS related to race and KillerChihuahua's stated reason for removal was completely wrong. BlackHades (talk) 22:47, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

This does appear to be related to race. Other adoption studies seem to be listed on the page. I don't see how this one is any different than the others. Why include the others but not this one? GTZing (talk) 05:12, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

BlackHades, it appears when you added this content to the article you cited it to the primary source, and also to Jensen, Rushton and Lynn. It would be best to cite it to a secondary source that gives a neutral overview of the debate, such as the Loehlin source you quoted above. The Loehlin source discusses this adoption study in the broader context of race and intelligence, and is already cited elsewhere in the article. 101.0.71.30 (talk) 07:14, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

We can cite the Loehlin source as well. But the Loehlin source mentions just 2 of the Korean adoption studies. This one and one other one. Lynn's source actually has the most comprehensive list of Korean studies. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with using Lynn as a source. This litmus test by some editors on whether to allow a source appears to be "is this source pro environmental or not?" Rather than "does this source meet WP:Verifiability. It's blatant WP:Truth that needs to stop. It's okay to have your own POV but please respect WP:NPOV when it comes to editing. Are we finally in agreement that the text in question is related to race? I can't believe it took a hundred replies to finally get to this point. BlackHades (talk) 10:45, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Use of Hunt & Carlson 2007 in the lead.

Currently, the second paragraph of the lead (beginning with "Four contemporary classifications of position regarding study of differences in IQ based on race/ethnicity") summarizes the opening remarks of Hunt & Carlson (2007): "The investigation of racial differences in intelligence is probably the most controversial topic in the study of individual differences. Contemporary proponents can be found for each of the following positions:...". As the article is not about, nor does it cover (in any detail), "contemporary classifications of position regarding study of differences in IQ based on race/ethnicity" why are these "classifications" covered in the lead? — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 22:32, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

WP:BURDEN

Sorry for taking so long to notice the discussion here. I'm the same individual who has commented at Talk:Guns, Germs, and Steel. I know my IP address keeps changing, but I can't control that.

I have a question about the way WP:BURDEN is being applied to this article. As I understand from the comments by The Devil's Advocate and BlackHades, the material that recently was removed was already supported by consensus in an earlier discussion. Per this edit, the reason the material cannot be added back yet is because a new consensus must form for it before it can be restored.

Is that correct? I hadn't realised this was the case, that any editor can remove from an article material supported by existing consensus, and WP:BURDEN requires editors who wish to restore the material to form a new consensus to restore it each time someone removes it. 101.0.71.30 (talk) 05:13, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

If the material is not supported by the supplied sources, or there is a reasonable concern that it is not, then consensus is moot. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 05:54, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

No. The full quote is

Sometimes editors will disagree on whether material is verifiable. The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and is satisfied by providing a reliable source that directly supports the material.

At issue here isn't forming a new consensus over any material that was previously removed.

In essence, you can't expect someone to prove a negative. If you add something, and someone says that it doesn't belong in the article, you can't say "prove it doesn't belong". Rather, if you want to add something to onus is on you to prove that it does belong. This is important because without it, anyone could add anything to an article. While you still can do that in theory, when someone questions your addition (or when someone questions existing content) you need to show it belongs there. There's a much higher standard for inclusion than there is for exclusion. Guettarda (talk) 05:52, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

You tell me "no", but from the rest of your post it sounds like the answer is really yes. If the onus is always on the editors who want to restore content to get consensus for that, then all it would take for one person to remove some content that was added by consensus is to say is "prove it belongs", then prevent a new consensus from forming to restore it. 101.0.71.31 (talk) 06:15, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Did you actually look at the reason KC gave for altering and removing the paragraph? It was referring to some isolated comment in one of the sources, presented out of context, that clearly had nothing to do with the material in the lede. WP:BURDEN doesn't mean we have to indulge every objection with a re-hashing of the discussion no matter how baseless. That is just a pathway to letting any random passerby disrupt the work on this article.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 06:22, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

In response to Guettarda's statement, "At issue here isn't forming a new consensus over any material that was previously removed". I wish that was the case. KillerChihuahua has removed massive amounts of text that meets WP:Verifiability that had previously gained consensus and is asking to get consensus all over again. Even after WP:Verifiability has been established. BlackHades (talk) 07:25, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

On writing encyclopaedia articles

I'm a little taken aback by this article. Despite being the subject of an arbcomm case, despite quotes from the case at the top of this page which say "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"...this article is a morass of primary source quotes juxtaposed together. The fourth paragraph of the history section introduces Jensen (1969) by citing...Jensen (1969). Two paragraphs later, Snyderman and Rothman (1988) is referenced to...Snyderman and Rothman (1987). Third party sources? The Ethics of research section section is worse - not only does it rely on primary sources, it doesn't even say what they say, just that they say something. Er, yeah. We don't need a Wikipedia article to tell us The 1996 report of the APA had comments on the ethics of research on race and intelligence without a single word on what it has to say about the topic.

Instead of fighting over what words should be included where, can we do something to (a) improve the article, and (b) try to get it to conform with the standards imposed upon these articles by the arbcomm case? Guettarda (talk) 05:34, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

What you cite is describing the policy on original research, which does permit the use of primary sources and the case page actually supports this as well. It is interpretation and analysis of those sources that is not permitted. Describing what a primary source states is well within the bounds of policy. Now, I do think the ethics section would do well with some fleshing out on some of the details, but the sources used are quite appropriate.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 06:08, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

It's not about whether the sources are "appropriate" or not, it's about how they are used. Most sources can be used as either primary sources or secondary sources. As the case says "primary sources are permitted if used carefully". The problem here is that they are not being used carefully. Juxtaposing a series of primary source statements from opposing sides amounts to WP:SYNTH. "X says this, Y says that" is OK in unproblematic areas, but in a page like this it can create problems. When working from primary sources, you always need to make the decision to include some sources and leave out others. When there are conflicting sources, that selection gives more weight to some ideas and less to others. Which is why we need to leave that decision to reliable scholarly secondary sources in articles like these. And that's NOT what's happened in this one. Guettarda (talk) 15:49, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Edit warring in lead

It is not a good idea to edit war, particularly when WP:ARBR&I is in force. The edit by BlackHades at 08:55, 12 February 2013 has edit summary "Discussion is complete. Restoring per WP:LEAD, Per WP:V". That's despite the discussion obviously not being complete, and there being no consensus for the change. Further, it was explicitly explained above that "a lot more than "verifiable" is required to justify material—see WP:NPOV". The edit (diff) inserted this as the second paragraph of the lead:

IQ tests performed in the United States have consistently demonstrated a significant degree of variation between different racial groups, with the average score of those with African ancestry lower than that of European ancestry and the average score of those with East Asian ancestry being higher than that of European ancestry. While the existence of racial IQ gaps is well-documented and not subject to much dispute, there is no consensus among researchers as to their cause. Research into potential genetic causes for intellectual differences between races is controversial and has generated heated debate. Some researchers fear that the findings could be misused to perpetuate racial stereotypes, while others contend that the politicization of the field threatens to stifle important avenues of research.

It is not acceptable to use Wikipedia's voice (and particularly not in the lead) to state that there is a demonstrable difference between certain groups, without a lot of qualification concerning that "finding". While accurate as far as certain kinds of tests is concerned, the finding is not accepted by mainstream experts as a valid assessment of the topic of this article, namely race and intelligence. I don't have time to find a ref at the moment, but the essential issue concerns what differences are being detected by the tests—it is likely that the result is due to the very different circumstances under which the groups are raised rather than some inherent general intelligence.

Another problem with the above paragraph is that it is a mishmash of ideas, presumably assembled by an editor who cherry picked thoughts from various sources. This article must be based on secondary sources which review the field, such as IQ and Human Intelligence by Nicholas Mackintosh. Johnuniq (talk) 12:21, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Edit warring would be repeatedly trying to remove text that clearly meets WP:V and has already previously achieved consensus and is in full accordance with WP:LEAD. There's been more than enough sources provided by The Devil's Advocate and by me. With not a single counter source by anyone. WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT is not a valid argument. Continuing asking The Devil's Advocate to repeat himself over and over again while not responding to his statements is disruptive. There were plenty of secondary sources provided. If there is a countering WP:reliable source then provide one. No one has. BlackHades (talk) 12:57, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

"African Americans, The relatively low mean of the distribution of African-American intelligence test scores has been discussed for many years. Although studies using different tests and samples yield a range of results, the Black mean is typically about one standard deviation (about 15 points) below that of Whites."

American Psychological Association. Task Force Report. 1994. Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns

"The relationship between IQ scores and elementary cognitive task (ECT) performance is well established, with variance on each largely reflecting the general factor of intelligence. Also ubiquitous are Black–White mean differences on IQ and measures of academic success, like grade point average (GPA)"

Pesta, Bryan. (2008) Black–White differences on IQ and grades Intelligence 36. pg 323-329.

"The 1.1 standard deviation difference in average IQ between Blacks and Whites in the United States is not in itself a matter of empirical dispute"

Rushton, J Philippe. (2005) Thirty Years of Research on race..

"It is widely accepted that race differences in intelligence exist.”

Lynn, Richard. (2006) Race Differences in Intelligence

"The bell curve for whites is centered roughly around IQ 100; the bell curve for American blacks roughly around 85"

Mainstream Science on Intelligence

"The existence of sometimes large group differences in intelligence is as well-established as any fact in the social sciences".

Gottfredson, Linda. 1994. Egalitarian Fiction and Collective Fraud Society 31(3) pg 53-59. BlackHades (talk) 13:05, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

In response to "While accurate as far as certain kinds of tests is concerned". I'm assuming you mean IQ tests here. Which the text clearly specifies. In regards to all your concerns following this statement, the text never states what the cause or meaning of the well established IQ differences are. It clearly states "While the existence of racial IQ gaps is well-documented and not subject to much dispute, there is no consensus among researchers as to their cause." This is also very accurate, reliably sourced, and NPOV. The text is a summary of statements and sources that is already in the body per WP:LEAD. BlackHades (talk) 13:52, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

• New approach: I've restored the Sep 2010 lead, as that was stable for a long time and had wide consensus; the lead has not been very stable since. We can work forward from that very stable lead.

Part of the problem is that the lead is supposed to summarize the article, yet edits have been made to the lead without any changes to the article, it has moved away from the purpose. Part of the problem is SYNTH and just plain mis-use of sources. I intend to work through the article from the beginning, checking the sources to ensure they are RS and actually support what is in the article. I note a lot of the sources are primary, where better secondary sources exist, and we should replace those where we can. And finally, what BH calls "cherry picking" to disqualify a source, above, was not even close - the article was about a study, and how racists had misused it. The author of the study made it clear the study had no bearing, IOW no relevance, to race and intelligence. Now BH seems to want to use the source the same way the racists mis-used it, and that's not a good idea. It is not "cherry picking" it is core, that study had nothing to do with race and intelligence. KillerChihuahua 14:41, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

None of what you just said is an accurate summary of the source. It is demonstrably wrong on every account. Good lord, all one has to do is actually read the article to understand that none of what you are saying is correct. The source only talks about mainstream academics being concerned that Lahn's study would be mis-used by racists and those academics seeking to debunk his study. Lahn states that the study itself "offered no view", but makes it clear that he thinks it could indicate a genetic component to group differences in intelligence. None of that is actually relevant, however, as the source was being used to back up a statement that "Research into potential genetic causes for intellectual differences between races is controversial and has generated heated debate." Do you dispute, in any fashion, whether the source substantiates that statement?--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:05, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

The Devil's Advocate: The source only talks about mainstream academics being concerned that Lahn's study would be mis-used by racists and those academics seeking to debunk his study. This is what the Wall Street Journal article says:

• source: Web sites and magazines promoting white "racialism" quickly seized on Dr. Lahn's suggestive scientific snapshot. One magazine that blames black and Hispanic people for social ills hailed his discovery as "the moment the antiracists and egalitarians have dreaded."
• This directly contradicts The Devil's Advocate's statement.

The Devil's Advocate: Lahn states that the study itself "offered no view", but makes it clear that he thinks it could indicate a genetic component to group differences in intelligence.

• source: What Dr. Lahn told his audience was that genetic changes over the past several thousand years might be linked to brain size and intelligence.
• source: The 37-year-old Dr. Lahn says his research papers, published in Science last September, offered no view on race and intelligence.
• source: What the data didn't say was how the mutations were advantageous. Perhaps the genes play a role outside of the brain or affect a brain function that has nothing to do with intelligence.
• source: While acknowledging that the evidence doesn't permit a firm conclusion, Dr. Lahn favors the idea that the advantage conferred by the mutations was a bigger and smarter brain.
• There appears to be nothing in the article which supports "... could indicate a genetic component to group differences ...". This appears to be a clear case of editor synthesis. It's worth noting that even if that claim were explicitly supported, including the content violates WP:SPECULATION.

The Devil's Advocate: None of that is actually relevant, however, as the source was being used to back up a statement that "Research into potential genetic causes for intellectual differences between races is controversial and has generated heated debate."

• Full statement: Research into potential genetic causes for intellectual differences between races is controversial and has generated heated debate. Some researchers fear that the findings could be misused to perpetuate racial stereotypes, while others contend that the politicization of the field threatens to stifle important avenues of research.
• source: Yet today, Dr. Lahn says he is moving away from the research. "It's getting too controversial," he says. Dr. Lahn had touched a raw nerve in science: race and intelligence.
• The first sentence is supported by the Wall Street Journal article, however the second sentence is not. Both sentences were introduced into the article by The Devil's Advocate in this edit: [17]. In this case we have single sentence sourced to an editorial (Ceci/Williams) being promoted to the lead without attribution to authors, contrary to WP:NEWSORG and WP:LEAD. We also have a primary source (Knerr, Ramos, et al) being inserted into the lead contrary to WP:LEAD. This is a clear misuse of sources contrary to WP:PSTS.

It appears that The Devil's Advocate is simply defending content that he introduced into the lead, regardless of the degree to which it misuses sources. aprock (talk) 18:27, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I erred in saying it didn't mention racists actually using it, since it seems I overlooked the one sentence where this was actually stated. As far as I can tell that is the only time it is mentioned. I could point out the numerous omissions you are making with regards to Lahn, but I already stated that his study was itself irrelevant to the use of the source. You yourself concede that the only statement the source was being used to support was supported by the source, so I see no reason for your line of argumentation regarding my comments about Lahn.

As to your claims about the second sentence, you are mistaken on several points. WP:LEDE says nothing about primary sources, even if your description of that source as a primary source had any legitimacy. Read the relevant policy, which states "A secondary source provides an author's own thinking based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from an event. It contains an author's interpretation, analysis, or evaluation of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources." That describes this use of the BMC source to a tee. As to the Ceci/Williams source, one has to consider this part from the policy you cite: "The opinions of specialists and recognized experts are more likely to be reliable and to reflect a significant viewpoint." Is there any doubt that Ceci and Williams are experts in the relevant field who can be taken as providing a significant viewpoint in said field? I mean, a major scientific journal explicitly chose them to represent the viewpoint for allowing such research so I would say that is ipso facto evidence that this is the case.

BTW, I previously inserted the material into the lede as the result of a consensus decision involving a wide array of views so the idea that I am solely responsible for its contents is quite absurd. I have just been trying to defend that consensus position.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 19:18, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

The Devil's Advocate: As to your claims about the second sentence, you are mistaken on several points. WP:LEDE says nothing about primary sources, even if your description of that source as a primary source had any legitimacy.

• You seem to be operating under significant misunderstanding here. The portion of WP:LEAD that is relevant is this: Apart from trivial basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article. Sources (primary or otherwise) which exist only in the lead cannot be considered trivial/basic facts. I realize that wikipedia policy is not always straightforward, but your approach and understanding of policy does not appear to be sufficiently developed. Please do invest some more time in understanding policy. The content sourced to (Ceci/Williams) is clearly under dispute. Without a secondary source to establish the weight of that content inserting it into the article is a misuse of primary sources. Inserting editorial content into the lead without author attribution, as if it were fact, is a gross misuse of sources. Disruptive editing like this only hurts the project. aprock (talk) 19:31, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

The Devil's Advocate': I previously inserted the material into the lede as the result of a consensus decision involving a wide array of views so the idea that I am solely responsible for its contents is quite absurd.

• Again, it appears your understanding of policy is weak. Reviewing the talk page discussion surrounding that edit, it's clear that you are referring to a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS among editors who never objected to the content in the first place. Representing agreement among three like minded editors as community WP:CONSENSUS is disruptive. aprock (talk) 19:48, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

A source that exists only in the lede is not the same thing as information that appears only in the lede. The sources in the relevant section in the article body supported the statement, I just included a source that directly supported the summary statement. No relevant policies or guidelines support your argument that the source was inappropriate to use in the lede. The Ceci/Williams source is plainly legitimate to use per the policy statements I noted and your demand for additional sources to back up its use is without merit and only impedes discussion. Two credentialed mainstream academics in the relevant field who were chosen by a major scientific journal to present a competing position on the dispute are obviously reliable for the purpose of noting significant academic viewpoints on the issue and this being a significant viewpoint is supported by material in the article body noting James R. Flynn's position on such research, which is also noted by Ceci and Williams in the source. As to the consensus, you are mistaken in your evaluation as Artifex actually signaled support for another editor's formulation, which contained the sources I used, that was essentially the same as the one ultimately added to the article. It is also mistaken to refer to the other editors involved as "like-minded" since there was plenty of disagreement.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 20:44, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Probably the best secondary source to start with is the Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence, there are two chapters directly relevant to this article in the handbook, chapter 14, Racial and Ethnic Group Differences in Intelligence in the United States; and chapter 15, Race and Intelligence. Published in 2011, these major handbooks seem to be updated every decade or so, and while handbooks no longer serve their historical purpose as being the core reading for doctoral students across various sub-disciplines of psychology, they are still a good resource for understanding the consensus view in the field. JonathanE 21:17, 12 February 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by JonathanE (talk • contribs)

You don't blindly revert 2 years of work. There are major problems with the old lead that was fixed through 2 years of work and talk and consensus among multiple editors. (see below). It appears the only main point of contention is the text "Research into potential genetic causes for intellectual differences between races is controversial and has generated heated debate. Some researchers fear that the findings could be misused to perpetuate racial stereotypes, while others contend that the politicization of the field threatens to stifle important avenues of research." Even though the sources appear to support this text, I will temporarily remove this text while we thoroughly investigate it. But the rest of the lead is being restored. Blind revert to 2 years ago is WP:Disruptive editing. BlackHades (talk) 23:59, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

New lead

At a quick glance this seems a much better lead. Please don't revert this - let's discuss it. It makes some important points about race and intelligence missing in the old lead. Dougweller (talk) 17:43, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Reverting to a version from over two years ago without any discussion is monumentally disruptive and should not be endorsed by anyone. I have several issues with this new lede, or shall we say older lede, and my objections about the previous changes have not really been impacted by this change. The part listing "several psychologists" in the current lede is inappropriate. It suggests that this is a view held by this small group and is held only in a specific field, when we all know this is not the case. More importantly, despite all the crowing about sources in the lede, this lede has exactly one citation, a citation that was already included in the recent version of the lede and would have easily addressed the only meaningful complaints raised above about the paragraph being repeatedly removed.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 18:37, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree, it's a major improvement over what was there. It seems to be a much closer relationship to the content of the article than did the previous lead. Guettarda (talk) 19:02, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

And more accurate. Of course, the real nightmare fun will be verifying source usage. If you like that sorta thing. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 19:22, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, as I said in the section above, "Part of the problem is that the lead is supposed to summarize the article, yet edits have been made to the lead without any changes to the article, it has moved away from the purpose. Part of the problem is SYNTH and just plain mis-use of sources. I intend to work through the article from the beginning, checking the sources to ensure they are RS and actually support what is in the article. I note a lot of the sources are primary, where better secondary sources exist, and we should replace those where we can." - and after we've combed through the article and ensured the sources are all RS and the best sources we can find, and the content reflects what is in the sources, then we can revisit the lead and check to ensure it still summarizes the article. KillerChihuahua 19:34, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)::The lead having only one citation shouldn't be a problem. Dougweller (talk) 21:32, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

The lead having only one citation shouldn't be a problem. Dougweller (talk) 21:32, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I would generally agree, but seeing as this whole dispute arose because of arguments about needing more or better citations in the lede, this outcome seems inconsistent with the whole nature of the whole dispute.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 21:58, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

This lead has so many issues and inaccuracies which was why it was previously changed through consensus talk. We're not going to re-hash these exact same issues again. This is WP:Disruptive editing. If there's a specific objection from the modern lead that you have, then raise it. But we're not reverting back to a lead from 2 years ago, that has so many problems, which was addressed and changed through consensus talk. We're not going to re-hash here. BlackHades (talk) 23:09, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Most of the statements in the old lead is not supported by any text or sources in the article. There are major problems and inaccuracies with the old lead that was fixed through consensus with the modern lead. You don't just revert back 2 years of work without any talk or discussion.

1. The claim that Asians have higher IQ than Whites is not completely accurate. East Asians have higher IQ than White Americans. Non-East Asians have lower IQ than White Americans. The modern lead fixed this issue by specifically stating East Asians.

2. The claim that Asian IQ is significantly higher than White Americans is wrong. East Asian IQ is estimated to be 3-6 points higher than Whites. The modern lead fixed this issue by removing the word "significantly".

3. "It is generally agreed that environmental and/or cultural factors affect individual IQ scores". This quote completely violates NPOV, It completely omits the fact that there's a consensus that genetic factors affects individual IQ score and is often viewed as the more dominant factor. Particularly for post-adolescence IQ where the heritability is .80. Snyderman and Rothman poll also confirmed that the overwhelming majority in the field consider genetics to be a major role in individual IQ.

4. "it is widely assumed that most or all of the racial IQ gap is attributable to such factors". This is absolutely 100% false. The only survey done on the field, the Snyderman and Rothman poll showed that the all environmental viewpoint is a heavy minority in the field at only 15%. Modern lead fixed this problem by stating "While the existence of racial IQ gaps is well-documented and not subject to much dispute, there is no consensus among researchers as to their cause.". This is far more accurate and much more NPOV.

5. "Far more controversial is the claim put forward by several psychologists, including Arthur Jensen, J. Philippe Rushton and Richard Lynn, that a significant portion of the racial IQ gap has an ultimately genetic origin. This claim has not been accepted by the wider academic community and has been met with widespread disapproval in the popular media." This statement is completely not NPOV and is also undue weight and doesn't meet WP:V. There's no reason to name specific scientists here. It completely omits the fact that the view is much more controversial in the public and much less controversial in the scientific field. "An overwhelming majority also believe that individual genetic inheritance contributes to variations in IQ within the white community, and a smaller majority express the same view about the black-white and SES differences in IQ. While the private consensus among IQ experts has shifted to meet Jensen's “controversial” views, the public impression of their views has not moved at all.” Gottfredson, Linda. (1994) Egalitarian Fiction and Collective Fraud Society 31(3). pg 53-59.

6. The APA quote in the older lead is far less presentable than the modern lead. The modern lead much more clearly illustrates their position.

Note that I'm just giving examples why the older lead was replaced and changed through consensus to the modern lead. Please do not respond to these points or try to re-engage them. Such attempts will be ignored. We will NOT be re-hashing the exact same debates over and over again that had already previously achieved consensus and been settled. BlackHades (talk) 23:46, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Consensus can change. And, indeed, it has. If you're unwilling to discuss things, then you are free to move on to other articles. Guettarda (talk) 00:03, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

If there are specific issues you have with the modern lead, then raise it. I've been more than willing to discuss. The only major point of contention appears to be the line "Research into potential genetic causes for intellectual differences between races is controversial and has generated heated debate. Some researchers fear that the findings could be misused to perpetuate racial stereotypes, while others contend that the politicization of the field threatens to stifle important avenues of research." We can discuss and investigate this. But what we will not do is a blind revert to 2 years ago which is very clear WP:Disruptive editing. BlackHades (talk) 00:10, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Suggest you self-revert. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 00:30, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

And please stop holding up Gottfredson's unsupported opinions and political writings as if they have any bearing on the actual science of this topic. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 00:47, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe there is an actual consensus for one version of the lede or another. Until KC did the revert the concerns about the lede focused mostly on one paragraph. Now we're stuck discussing the entire lede. This keeps us from discussing how to address the section on brain size and other material that KC has deleted.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:59, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

ArtifexMayhem, we go from discussing two lines in the lead, to a blind revert of the entire lead to 2 years ago. Please no more WP:Disruptive editing. I removed the 2 disputed lines. Please focus on discussing whether to include, omit, or alter those 2 lines in question. BlackHades (talk) 02:35, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

No thanks. Aligning the article, as a whole, with policy and the ArbCom case, as suggested above, is the ultimate requirement. Once done the lead will write itself. Moving right along. Bear left. Frog right.— ArtifexMayhem (talk) 03:32, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Article WP:OWNership issues

We have a serious problem here, no matter what you feel about the article. Not only is BlackHades continuing to edit-war over the article's lead, s/he is also making statements like this one: "Please do not respond to these points or try to re-engage them. Such attempts will be ignored. We will NOT be re-hashing the exact same debates over and over again that had already previously achieved consensus and been settled."

BlackHades, are you willing to either edit in a collegial and civil manner? If not, will you please take a break from this article? Guettarda (talk) 22:00, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Take this to the user talkpage please. Arkon (talk) 22:06, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Disagree, Arkon. This is not general user conduct; this is conduct on this article, which is under ArbCom sanctions. It is best to keep this discussion here, where all participants may see and discuss. KillerChihuahua 22:30, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Let's see, first KillerChihuahua removes huge chunks of this article without any discussion or talk despite disputes by others. here, here, here, here, here, here.

Then talks about a source in the lead that relates to two lines of text in the lead yet for some reason removes the entire section. Is thoroughly explained to her the validity of the text per WP:V per WP:LEAD. Never disputes the text in question or provides any counter-evidence or sources. Never talks about it. With no one else questioning the validity of it. Then attempts to do a blind revert of the lead to 2 years ago without any discussion here. I even finally give in to her even though the 2 lines in question appear to be supported by the text, I relented and removed the 2 lines in question and yet she still again continues to remove the entire section. A very clear pattern of continued disruptive editing. She's violated so many rules and policies. WP:Verifiability, WP:LEAD, WP:NPOV, WP:Disruptive editing, WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT, WP:I just don't like it, WP:TRUTH, WP:OWN in a relentless POV push. Frankly, her administration abilites need to come under review as she seems completely unaware of and repeatedly breaks wikipedia policies. As was fully acknowledged by The Devil's Advocate as well. "My suggestion is that you restore the well-sourced and accurate wording that emerged out of talk page consensus as it was before you made any changes to it. Your claim that the material was not well-sourced is mistaken and was addressed thoroughly during that earlier discussion. Also, consider that I would not feel a need to remind you of the relevant guideline if I thought your edits were like those expected of someone who had knowledge of it"--The Devil's Advocate.

Sorry. But no amount of WP:Meat puppetry can counter following policies. Policy comes first. BlackHades (talk) 22:45, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Not to mention, you completely took my quote out of context. This was very specifically referenced to KillerChihuahua's WP:Disruptive editing blind lead revert to a lead 2 years ago. BlackHades (talk) 22:55, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

1, who are you accusing of meatpuppetry? That is a serious charge.

2, the restoration of the long-held consensus lead from Sep 2010 had strong support from two other editors, both very experienced, and while Guettarda commented in the article talk page about that edit, he did not object, so it seems he was neutral or close to it. The only two who objected were you and The Devil's Advocate, and that is either 3:2 or 4:2 in favor of that lead as opposed to the one you reverted to. While this is not consensus, it is majority, and I fail to see how your characterization of my edit holds up. I suggest to you that as a newer editor, you may not understand policy and editing as well as you would like. My edit was BOLD and cut through all the policy issues (primarily V but also NPOV and LEAD) which the lead you keep reverting to has. I said at the time, and I say now, it is better to work forward from a lead with no such issues, than try to work forward from one which has multiple issues. It would have been more productive for you to make suggested edits to the Sep2010 lead, rather than blind revert to your preferred lead. KillerChihuahua

Don't patronize me. I've edited for nearly 4 years and am more than aware of policies. Which either you don't or choose to ignore. Your assertion that the old lead has "no issues" is fallacious. I clearly outlined very severe problems with the old lead. All of which is resolved by the modern lead. The old lead had severe issues with WP:V with the requirement of WP:BURDEN never met which was why it was changed through consensus over time. We should not have to re-hash these exact same problems over again. We're moving forward. If you have issues with the modern lead, then raise it. Don't just revert back over 2 years without any discussion. BlackHades (talk) 01:55, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I didn't say it had "no issues". KillerChihuahua 02:08, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

The evidence for meatpuppetry is mounting up more and more as this continues. There's been a massive amount of editors that just simply appeared out of nowhere as soon as KillerChihuahua started her mass deletions. That continued to back her at every single turn and every single edit, even in cases when it would be blatantly obvious to anyone that she was wrong. (e.g. Claiming that Korean adoption studies is not related to race or the article. Despite being mentioned in several secondary sources that very specifically are linking race, intelligence, and adoption.) This is just one example of many. BlackHades (talk) 23:20, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Who, exactly, are you accusing of being my meatpuppet? KillerChihuahua 23:28, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Come on guys, there are more appropriate places for this. I don't know how this section can be turned into something positive for this article, but I am leaning heavily to hatting this if no edit proposals to improve this article are made. Arkon (talk) 22:53, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

There is what might be a more appropriate place for this, and it is WP:AE. However, it is better to try to work things out on the article talk page first, and then hopefully AE won't be necessary. As multiple editors are involved, there is no one user talk page which would be an appropriate venue. While I sympathize with your desire to focus entirely on the article, sometimes policy violations and combative behavior, or other issues, must be addressed before meaningful progress can be made. KillerChihuahua 22:58, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Your last sentence is true, however the addressing does not need to occur here. So far this section can be summed up as baiting and sniping by and at multiple users. Still waiting for suggested edit proposals. Arkon (talk) 23:09, 13 February 2013 (UTC

Firstly, you need not participate in this section if you do not wish. Secondly, where else would you suggest? I have considerable experience here, as does Guettarda, who started this section, and I cannot think of a better venue, and apparently he thought this was the best place too. I am open to suggestions. KillerChihuahua 23:17, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I suggested the proper place in my first comment. Your experience makes your defense of this section regarding user behavior even more curious. Arkon (talk) 23:51, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I support Guettarda's attempt to discuss this, and while I agreed that an article talk page is not generally the best place for such a discussion, when the issues involve several editors it is sometimes best to have it there. I did see you say to take it elsewhere, I did not see you offer to deal with this, which is apparently how Guettarda read your comments, based on his post of 23:15, 13 February 2013 below, hence my confusion. Are you "offering to deal with this" as G seems to think, or has he misunderstood? KillerChihuahua 02:14, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I can't imagine how Guettarda could assume such a thing. I've been clear that this section doesn't belong here. Now I'm going to let this fade off into the archive sunset. Arkon (talk) 04:32, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

You said it should be dealt with on the user talk page. Obviously I wouldn't have brought it here if I thought that I could productively engage with the editor on their talk page. I assumed that since you wanted to hat this discussion, you were willing to take care of the problem in what you saw as the proper venue. I'm sorry to see that I was mistaken. Guettarda (talk) 05:21, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Arkon, I very much appreciate you offering to deal with this on BH's talk page. Thanks. Guettarda (talk) 23:15, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Did he? I must have missed it. Blind puppy. KillerChihuahua 23:20, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Hilarious, yet unproductive. Got an actual suggested edit? Arkon (talk) 23:51, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Sure, we could revert the lead to this version. It did have at least some modicum of support. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 00:51, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Both versions had support.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 01:06, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

The old lead doesn't meet WP:V and never passed the requirement of WP:BURDEN. It was changed and fixed over time for a reason. BlackHades (talk) 01:12, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Third paragraph in lead removed

(Edit conflict) I think KillerChihuaha's editing is at least as much a concern as BlackHades'. AFAICT, this is the second time he has removed the description of racial IQ gaps from the lede, and he is not attempting to get support for this removal on the talk page. If the lede is to summarise the article, it must include this information, and the next sentence of the lede (Four contemporary classifications of position regarding study of differences in IQ based on race/ethnicity are seen) makes no sense if the paragraph describing those differences is removed. I would assume the arbitration rules don't allow this behaviour, and I am surprised nobody besides BlackHades is raising the issues with it. 101.0.71.8 (talk) 22:50, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

On the content issue, I agree with 101 regarding the paragraph's deletion. This was something I was planning to bring up here myself. Saying there is a consistently observed racial IQ gap is important to any introduction of the subject as it's the main reason there is an ongoing dispute in the first place. KC's objection about the paragraph being U.S.-centric is a reasonable concern, but it reflects the fact that the article as whole is currently very U.S.-centric. That is not a problem that can or should be addressed by deleting a paragraph that is integral to the lede. I have had difficulty locating reliable and independent sources on IQ tests outside the U.S., but perhaps someone here can offer some to satisfy KC's objection. There is a source in the article, but it does not appear to be explicitly about race and intelligence.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:11, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

The problem with that paragraph is UNDUE, specifically WP:BIAS. It starts out with US. This is not the Race and intelligence in the United States article, it is the Race and intelligence article. The other points are already covered in the last paragraph in the lead, the one which starts with the AMA. KillerChihuahua 23:14, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Note that the exact same average racial IQ differences in the US are found worldwide as well. Which you can review at Nations and intelligence. Though the same average racial IQ differences are found worldwide, there have been concerns and some criticism raised about it due to it being difficult to do cross country comparisons while neutralizing environmental effects and how well the sampling is. Nonetheless, the IQ gaps between groups isn't just US centric, it is worldwide. BlackHades (talk) 23:35, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

As it stands the article mostly focuses on the controversy in the U.S. There are two possible reasons for that:

1. This is systemic bias as most editors contributing to the topic are Americans.
2. It is a dispute centered mostly in the U.S.

This article does not exclusively concern the American sphere of the controversy, but it does put a heavy emphasis on it. I do not believe this is exclusively an American controversy, but until the article body better reflects the global nature of the controversy the lede should serve as a summary of the article contents. Your issue with the lede is really an issue with the article and should be addressed by globalizing the overall article's content, not by deleting integral material from the lede.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:39, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

There are much more of these studies done in the US because the US is the most racially diverse country. It's difficult or even impossible to do such studies in homogeneous countries. BlackHades (talk) 00:01, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

We can expand the "International comparisons" section of the article using the secondary source of Lynn, which is the most comprehensive collection of worldwide IQ, and add this line to the lead following the US scores, "Similar racial IQ gaps have been found worldwide but some have questioned its validity and reliability." BlackHades (talk) 01:05, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

TDA: I have no objection to rewriting the paragraph so it reflects a world wide view. But as it is currently written, it sounds like any IQ difference only happens in the United States. There are also European studies in the article. Keeping that US-centric paragraph in the article lead is UNDUE and unbalanced. I agree with BlackHades that the non-US content needs to be expanded, but suggest that we either combine US test scores with International comparisons, or list other countries as the US is listed. It will be a bit unbalanced at first with the second approach, but eventually we can fill in other countries. I prefer the first approach; studies which involved people from several countries will not be an issue then, and it will avoid the appearance that this is limited to only a few countries, and primarily to the US. KillerChihuahua 02:28, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't agree with the slash-and-burn approach as it will more likely end with no consensus for what to put in its place and then leaves us with incomplete content. As it stands it is an accurate summary of the article's contents and should only be altered to better reflect the current contents or to incorporate summary material of additional content.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 02:52, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

What are you talking about, slash and burn? I'm talking about rewriting a paragraph so it isn't all about the US, or even primarily focused on the US, and merging - not removing - two sections. KillerChihuahua 02:55, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

If you are saying that you now support leaving it in and discussing how to resolves your concerns then I apologize.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 03:09, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I thought it was clear when I said to you I have no objection to rewriting the paragraph so it reflects a world wide view. that I had no objections to rewriting the para to reflect a world wide view. I have very strong objections, which I have repeated but apparently not clearly enough, that the paragraph as it stands now is UNDUE and BIAS, because it focuses on the US only; giving the false impression that there are IQ differences only in the US. Please let me know if I am still not being clear enough, or if you wish clarification. KillerChihuahua 03:24, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Before attempting to resolve longstanding issues with the article's scope, I would prefer to resolve the issues resulting from KillerChihuahua's removal of material. Above Aprock quoted a discussion about brain size with respect to race and intelligence in the Hunt and Carlson paper, which is a high-quality secondary source upon which much of the article is based. If brain size with respect to race and intelligence is discussed in the Hunt and Carlson paper, it should be discussed in this article. As it stands, the article does not discuss this aspect of the debate. I understand many people feel the removed section was poorly sourced, but excluding the topic entirely is not a solution.

Is there an earlier, stable version of the brain size section which has been supported by consensus? Consensus seems to not support KillerChihuaha's suggestion to revert the lede to an earlier version, but following that suggestion for the brain size section would be preferable over eliminating the section. 101.0.71.20 (talk) 04:08, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

It is better to discuss that in the talk page section concerning it so we don't derail this discussion.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 04:48, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

The Hunt/Carlson treatment of brain size is highlighted by the following excerpts:

• Thus, whether or not the link between genetic constitution, brain size, and IQ test scores has any substantial inter-racial or, for that matter, intra-racial, dimension is at present unknown. However it is something that is both feasible and reasonable to study at the molecular level.
• Furtherstudies, using modern imaging techniques, may provide a more sensitive test of the [Rushton's] hypothesis.

To the extent that there is anything to discuss here, it is Rushton's hypothesis, the fact that brain size is a directly measurable quantity as opposed to synthetic IQ, and that we don't have a mechanism for understanding or explaining the relationship between brain size and intelligence. aprock (talk) 05:25, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Evolutionary theories

Reviewing the removed section Evolutionary theories:

• The first sentence is entirely unsourced, and is followed by technical language which immediately refutes it.
• The Nisbett quote is taken from a section titled Not in the Genes, where Nisbett makes the case against the genetic argument. This is a clear example of cherry picking (introduced here).
• We then have a paragraph of idle speculation by Jensen and Rushton, neither of whom have any training in environmental biology.
• The final paragraph only serves to highlight their WP:SPECULATION.

Without high quality secondary sources which put forward the topic as one of serious scientific consideration, it's difficult to see how including this mishmash of speculative he said/she said advances the project in any way. aprock (talk) 06:07, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

That's more or less the short version of what my response was going to be. Thanks Aprock. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 06:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

It is clearly a noteworthy aspect of the debate as it is essentially the whole crux of the hereditarian view. How about you actually look for some sources, or make better use of the ones that are already there, and actually improve the section rather than taking the slash-and-burn approach? Nisbett talks a lot about environmental pressures on development of intelligence, albeit in opposing the hereditarian view as you are saying, and would be of great use for such a section. That source is not a primary source, mind you, it is a classic secondary source. All these deletions are doing is keeping us from discussing any particular bit of deleted material for very long as some other editor comes along and deletes some more material. It is tiresome.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 06:44, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

How about you actually look for some sources Indeed. I have explicitly named several high quality secondary/tertiary sources, including Hunt/Carlson (2007) and Mackintosh (1998). Others include: The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence, Hunt (2010), and Deary (2001). As for Nisbett, he uses the word "evolution" only one time in the body of his 235 page book. aprock (talk) 07:11, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I've begun to doubt it's possible to resolve this on the article talk page. Content is being removed more rapidly than improvements to it can be discussed, and the editors who are doing the most removing are making the least effort to improve it. ArtifexMayhem's edit summary "We can add this back if any proposed 'evolutionary theories' ever get any scientific traction" implies that he's not even interested in writing an improved version of this section as a replacement.

A few people have suggested making an AE request, and I support that now. (Not about Aprock, about the two editors making rapid removals while having little involvement in the discussion.) With the editors doing most of the removals making little effort to justify them, and the removals happening so rapidly that improving and restoring the content isn't possible, I don't see any other way forward. 101.0.71.23 (talk) 07:44, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree with 101. ArtifixMayhem, this is now two entire sections that you've removed from the "Genetic Arguments" portion of the article. "Brain size" and now "evolutionary theories", two highly relevant sections of the article that is discussed frequently in WP:reliable sources, while making very little suggestions on actually improving them. I wonder if you're attempting to make a permanent deletion of these sections. It's in the best interest of everyone to try to work this out and avoid AE but this constant slash and burn approach with little to no discussion is now making AE an inevitability. I respectfully request that you self revert this deletion and make an effort toward suggestion toward proposed changes. Otherwise, as 101 have also stated, I don't believe there is really any other option but AE at this point. BlackHades (talk) 08:31, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Seven days ago I provided this explanation for my removal of the "Brain size" section. My motivation for removing the "evolutionary theories" section is well summarized by Aprock's review (above). Discussions concerning content are always welcome. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 11:48, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

You don't just go and remove ENTIRE complete sections from the article because you feel there might be technical issues that are easily resolvable through discussion. Both these sections are relevant to the article and discussed thoroughly in WP:reliable sources from all different perspectives. This appear to be attempts to permanently remove sections from "Genetic Arguments" that clearly is relevant and heavily discussed in WP:reliable sources. You wrote reasons that were vague, didn't make any possible suggestions for change, and then never responded back to any criticism of your mass deletion or suggestions from others. BlackHades (talk) 12:00, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

He removed those sections because they were violations of WP:SYNTH and WP:OR, and the statements in the sections either had nothing at all to do with R&I, or they did but not because any source did, merely because they were written that way. This article suffers badly from poor sourcing and misuse of sourcing, and however you protest, the only way to salvage any content you don't like seeing removed is finding an actual source for it. Complaining on the talk page won't do it. We're an encyclopedia, not a blog, and we can't keep your favorite phrases and paragraphs without some sourcing. I'm sure you've read WP:V; no one should have to be explaining this to you. KillerChihuahua 14:03, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

ArtifixMayhem's claim of WP:SYNTH was completely erroneous. The source listed, such as Rushton and Jensen, very clearly explores the possible relationship of individual brain size to intelligence and the difference of brain sizes among races. There are also other secondary sources that explore the same as well including Lynn, Templer, Hunt, etc. Wicherts criticism of Rushton was also properly sourced. Which Aprock also stated as such before this mass deletion spree began. Note that neither ArtifixMayhem nor you have offered a single suggestion to improve that section. There's been mass deletion with vague reasoning and failure to respond back to criticism or suggestions. It seems you two simple prefer to not have it in the article at all despite the fact that it is highly relevant to this article with numerous WP:reliable sources that explore the issue. BlackHades (talk) 14:53, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I just wanted to clarify that what I wrote directly above this line was in reference to the removal of "brain size" and not to "evolutionary theories". In case there was some confusion. BlackHades (talk) 16:22, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Regarding possible WP:SYNTH:

First sentence:

• One explanation for racial IQ gaps advanced by some researchers is that they are partly the result of evolutionary pressures that varied between geographic regions

Second sentence:

• C. Loring Brace has argued that such a clinal distribution in the trait is highly improbable, because the evolution of human intelligence is founded on the development of human linguistic behavior, and intelligence is therefore of equal survival value to all human groups

Third sentence

• On the other hand, cultural psychologist Richard Nisbett has argued that "(t)here are a hundred ways that a genetic difference in intelligence could have arisen – either in favor of whites or in favor of blacks."

The first sentence is credited to Brace (whether intentionally or not), but it doesn't quite match what Brace says: Despite the declarations of several generations of outspoken bigots such as Ellsworth Huntington (1924), Arthur Jensen (1980), the authors of The Bell Curve (Herrnstein and Murray 1994), J. Philippe Rushton (1995) and widespread commonly held assumptions to that effect... He doesn't talk about "gaps" (which, as MathSci pointed out recently, are an awfully inaccurate way to characterise differences in means) and he doesn't say "some researchers"...he clearly says "outspoken bigots". Bowdlerising it to "some researchers" misrepresents what Brace is saying. The second sentence asserts that Brace draws the conclusion he does "because the evolution of human intelligence is founded on the development of human linguistic behavior". Brace does not, in fact, say that.

The third sentence though is where the problem gets bigger. Having presented Brace's view (or rather, a caricature thereof) the article then juxtaposes Nisbett's, and draws an explicit comparison between them. As Aprock pointed out, the Nisbett quote is taken out of context - Nisbett's intent is not, in fact, to draw a contrast with Brace's. But even if it were, unless Nisbett explicitly made the contrast, we can't make the contrast. That is the essence of WP:SYNTH.

The second paragraph has problems of its own. "Jensen explains...how...", cited to Jensen. That's about as useless a statement as one can put in an article. It tells the reader nothing beyond "go read Jensen's book". "Rushton carries this idea a step further..." What idea? The previous sentence refers to how Jensen explains, not what he explains. So how can Rushton carry "this idea" further? The reader has no idea what Jensen explained. More importantly, does Rushton develop upon Jensen's ideas explicitly? That seems dubious, given that Jensen's book was published three years after Rushton's. So again, the article is drawing connections that cannot exist in the sources. (IOW, WP:SYNTH.)

The third paragraph is just poorly written. The second part could reasonably be connected to the statement about Rushton's (mis)use of r/K selection, but the first sentence, citing Brace, just seems out of place. Guettarda (talk) 15:55, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Instead of focusing so much on what may be wrong with it, can we start putting more focus on suggestions on fixing it? Given that ArtifixMayhem and KillerChihuahua are responsible for the complete removal of "brain size" and "evolutionary theories", they should be taking the lead on giving specific suggestions, text, sources, for improvement. I think that's more than fair. BlackHades (talk) 16:36, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Lead and IQ tests

BlackHades restored the following text to the lead at 21:51, 13 February 2013 (diff):

IQ tests performed in the United States have consistently demonstrated a significant degree of variation between different racial groups, with the average score of those with African ancestry lower than that of European ancestry and the average score of those with East Asian ancestry being higher than that of European ancestry. While the existence of racial IQ gaps is well-documented and not subject to much dispute, there is no consensus among researchers as to their cause.

That text is very misleading for readers. This article is about race and intelligence, so almost all readers will interpret "IQ tests" as "intelligence". The only possible reading of the second paragraph of the lead for a general reader is "it is a proven fact that, on average, African Americans are less intelligent than European Americans, who are less intelligent than East Asians". There is a qualification, namely that researchers are not sure why African Americans are less intelligent than Europeans—but the fact is "well-documented and not subject to much dispute".

That reading is totally incorrect. A correct statement would indicate that different groups get different average scores for the same test—whether that indicates a difference in intelligence is highly disputed. Different scores might be due to genetics, environment, or test bias. It is impossible to test the genetic hypothesis directly since Americans with an African ancestry are subject to lifelong environmental differences compared with those of European ancestry. Various studies have attempted to explain the cause of the score differences, with no conclusive results. It is not known whether the tests indicate anything about race and intelligence.

In general, rather than warring over the lead, the correct procedure would be to write balanced material in the article, based on independent secondary sources that review the field. When that is complete, the lead will write itself. Johnuniq (talk) 08:05, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I disagree that it's misleading. The preceding text is very clear and states "There is no widely accepted formal definition of either race or intelligence in academia". That however does not change the fact that IQ is by far the most widely used method to measure intelligence. And a tremendous portion of this article is devoted to try to explain these IQ gaps from both an environmental perspective and genetic. This text is a summary of what is already in the body of the article per WP:LEAD. And the following paragraph does address all the concerns you raised. Which goes into depth regarding "Four contemporary classifications of position" that includes different possible explanations regarding genetics, environmental, test bias, etc. BlackHades (talk) 08:40, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Would you agree that an independent secondary source that reviews the field (such as IQ and Human Intelligence by Nicholas Mackintosh) would justify my concern expressed above that "It is not known whether the tests indicate anything about race and intelligence"? Or is there verifiable evidence to the contrary? Of course there is such evidence, but that evidence is dismissed by other qualified researchers with different interpretations. What I'm asking is whether an independent review of the field would conclude that there was significant evidence to claim that the IQ test scores provide meaningful information about race and intelligence. This article is not Race and IQ scores. Johnuniq (talk) 10:00, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Wouldn't this concern already be addressed in the following paragraph with the "Four contemporary classifications of position regarding study of differences in IQ based on race/ethnicity are seen." with the following line "a fourth position is that either or both of the concepts of race and general intelligence are poorly constructed and therefore any comparisons between races are meaningless." It appears that your concern is already being addressed. Are you asking to add another section to the lead to elaborate further on this 4th position? To do so will likely be giving undue weight to 1 of the 4 possible classifications of position." BlackHades (talk) 11:44, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Hunt's classifications are not the only "possible classifications of position" nor are they of equal weight. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 12:01, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Hunt's source was used through earlier consensus as editors from all range of perspectives, came all together and agreed on its reliability. An absolute incredible feat and extreme rarity considering the topic. BlackHades (talk) 12:08, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

The idea that there are only four possible classifications of position on this topic and that those positions are of equal weight cannot be supported simply because Hunt & Carlson (2007) is a generally reliable source. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 12:36, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

@BlackHades, you appear to be using support for inclusion of Hunt to exclude other high quality sources. In fact, the most valuable content for the encyclopedia is the content that most, or all, high quality secondary sources agree on. If Hunt's deliniation doesn't accord with other authors, that indicates that it deserves less weight, not that his is the only compartmentalization worth including. aprock (talk) 15:42, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not stating to exclude other high quality sources. What I'm concerned is giving undue weight to one specific viewpoint while omitting others. This is a situation where the field currently has no consensus as to the cause of average racial IQ gaps. I think we can all at least agree on that. Now trying to appropriately distribute what weight each viewpoint should be getting is exceptionally difficult here and a very slippery slope. The Snyderman and Rothman poll would be the only survey of the field done. Which showed 45% in the field support the view that the Black-White IQ gap is a combination of genetics and environment. 15% in support of the all environmental viewpoint. And 24% that replied there is insufficient evidence to support any viewpoint. Based on this survey, Hunt's 1st contemporary classification of position should be given the most weight. That states "The first is that these gaps reflect a real difference in average group intelligence, which is caused by a combination of environmental factors and heritable differences in brain function.", followed by APA's position that "the cause of the gap is currently unknown", and then followed by the all environmental position of Hunt's 2nd contemporary classification which states "A second position is that differences in average cognitive ability between races exist and are caused entirely by social and/or environmental factors." BlackHades (talk) 16:16, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

A single question from a 25 year old non-scientific survey is not a high quality secondary source. Using it to establish weight is precisely the sort of misuse of sources that we need to steer clear from. aprock (talk) 16:21, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

This is the only survey of the field done. To attempt to assess the field on anything else would simply be pure speculation. And I'm not even advocating its use here. My point was that we should avoid giving undue weight to specific viewpoints on mere speculation. BlackHades (talk) 16:30, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Johnuniq is correct when he says "The only possible reading of the second paragraph of the lead for a general reader is "it is a proven fact that, on average, African Americans are less intelligent than European Americans, who are less intelligent than East Asians"." The lead should not launch into this debate without a better version of paragraph 3 (which should become the 2nd paragraph). Not everyone is going to read past the lead. Whatever other problems there may be with para 3, it needs a simpler first sentence or two. Dougweller (talk) 16:43, 14 February 2013 (UTC)