Talk:The Bell Curve

Popular reception?

What seems to be missing from the discussion is how well did The Bell Curve sell? A discussion of how many copies were sold, how many reprints were made, and critics’ assessment of the reason’s behind the book’s commercial success or lack of it are certainly worthwhile. Luokehao, 13 December 2020, 08:09 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.221.166.49 (talk)

Chomsky's criticism needs a better example.

Chomsky's argument that "heritability does not have to be genetic" is either a semantic disagreement or a misunderstanding of biology. Per wikipedia's article on heritability, "broad-sense heritability" is defined as "all the genetic contributions to a population's phenotypic variance including additive, dominant, and epistatic (multi-genic interactions), as well as maternal and paternal effects, where individuals are directly affected by their parents' phenotype, such as with milk production in mammals." In the same wikipedia article, narrow-sense heritability is "the genetic component of variance responsible for parent-offspring resemblance". So by commonly accepted definitions, heritability is genetic. Therefore the example from Block, which Chomsky quotes, of a "heritable" trait that is not genetic (wearing earrings) is incorrect. Wearing earrings “some years ago when only women wore earrings" was NOT a heritable trait because a women does not inherit her female sex from her mother. She is female because she has 2 X chromosomes, one from each parent. Unless there is a better example of the point he is trying to make (or from Ned Block, a philosopher who specializes in defining consciousness), or a more substantial argument from Chomsky, the value of this section is dubious. There are plenty of more valid counterarguments that can be cited.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.70.132.109 (talk • contribs) 16:34, April 7, 2021 (UTC)

Since this is not a fair summary of Chomsky's argument, anything more than a quick rebuttal would be misplaced.

The "common" definition is wrong: "The term ‘heritability,’ as it is used today in human behavioral genetics, is one of the most misleading in the history of science. Contrary to popular belief, the measurable heritability of a trait does not tell us how ‘genetically inheritable’ that trait is."[1] Chomsky certainly knew this as well, since that's part of the context of the cited quote.

Any further discussion of changes to the article should avoid WP:OR, but Chomsky was far from the only one to point out this deep flaw in the book, regardless of which examples he used. Grayfell (talk) 03:24, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I propose merging Cognitive elite into The Bell Curve. I think that the worthwhile content of Cognitive elite is a small proportion of the 7KB article and can easily be incorporated into The Bell Curve. Most of the lede of Cognitive elite is devoted to The Bell Curve, whereas most of the main body is about Nietzsche. The Nietzsche material is not clearly relevant (as an editor argued recently on the talk-page), and it's a very superficial treatment compared to the main article Friedrich Nietzsche. It's also not well sourced (for example, schoolhomehelper.com). I believe that much or all of the Nietzsche material could be removed before merging. NightHeron (talk) 22:06, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

• Cognitive elite is a disaster area of WP:SYNTH. Unless the term is widely used in contexts completely separate from The Bell Curve, redirecting it to this article would be the sensible move. The fraction of the content that might be suitable for merging is very small. XOR'easter (talk) 22:32, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
• I think the merge is the way to go. The section is short, the topic is only discussed in the context of the bell curve, and there isn't commentry from other sources. Talpedia (talk) 23:14, 6 November 2021 (UTC)
• Right, merge that thing away. Also, in the Cog El article, we only learn that the concept "has been criticized", but not how. Someone tried to formally fulfil an NPOV requirement by just adding the Wikipedia Bad Writing equivalent of a Quack Miranda warning. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:49, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
• (I'm here from watching WP:FT/N) The whole Nietzsche part should go as it is unrelated OR. In fact, I'll remove it right away. The short bit that is left, even if it has a couple refs mentioning it after the book came out, should be merged into its own section in this article with some tweaks. VdSV9•♫ 15:07, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
• Thanks, NightHeron, for taking the initiative to put out this dumpster fire. I agree that the middle-school book report on Nietzsche should be cut entirely, and will add that Gottfredson's unsubstantiated POV quote is also UNDUE for any encyclopedia article anywhere. I'm agnostic about whether the single study by Jonathan Wai is DUE in this context, but would probably tend to lean against inclusion given the well known issues with the journal Intelligence on related topics. We can certainly merge edited versions of the remaining sentences, if they're not completely redundant, into the existing subsection "Part I. The Emergence of a Cognitive Elite" –– but from a quick glance I'm not sure there's much left that isn't completely redundant. Generalrelative (talk) 16:22, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
• Right idea, wrong target. The idea of a self perpetuating, assortatively mated, quasihereditary cognitive elite is much older than the Bell Curve book and is not so specifically associated with it. It has recurred enough to get its own article eventually (starting from zero, the current content is WP:TNT material) and at least a redirect right now. If there is a merger or redirect I would direct it to someplace more general such as the Meritocracy book from the 1950's, social stratification, elite, or Social Darwinism. "Cognitive" elite isn't quite the root concept, this has been discussed more voluminously as the intellectual, educational, technocratic, bureaucratic, power, status or professional elite. Cognitive elite would fit as a section in an article on any of those. Sesquivalent (talk) 02:18, 10 November 2021 (UTC)
• Support merge - I agree the underlying topic is vague and older than the book. The phrase "cognitive elite" is closely tied to The Bell Curve by modern sources. Without this context, or at least context directly supporting the use of this term itself, the phrase would be too loaded to be usable as a title for an article on the broader concept. If necessary, the article can always be spun-off again based on newer or better sources. As it stands now, any non-redundant content can be summarized here. Grayfell (talk) 02:39, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

My concern is that someone typing "cognitive elite" into the search bar would arrive at the specific setting of The Bell Curve without mention of the broader context, the explanation of which is mostly out of scope for this article. What about reducing the Cognitive Elite page to a stub consisting of one sentence referring to the Bell Curve for the recent (though largely USA focused) association, followed by a list of links to pages on Meritocracy (book), meritocracy (concept), noocracy, and the rest? This could later be converted to a standalone article or redirected to a section of whatever article is considered as the root underlying topic, once either of those is ready. Sesquivalent (talk) 07:58, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

By the book, you mean The Rise of the Meritocracy, correct?

In practice, a very short article which mainly serves to link to other articles is a disambiguation page. Is this phrase common enough for that? Do we have an independent indication that this is a cause for confusion among readers? If we preserve an article with this specific title, it should be under the assumption that some editors are typing in this phrase expecting to find something specific. I don't know what that specific thing is, and I'm not sure anyone else does, either. My understanding is that this specific phrase is mainly used in the context of Murray's political advocacy, and not as it relates to broader philosophy. The current sources at that article superficially support that, also. If we (Wikipedia editors) are the ones creating the link in readers minds between this phrase and the broader philosophy of merit or wisdom, that would be a form of editorializing, among other serious problems. Grayfell (talk) 21:34, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes, Young's book on rise of the meritocracy. There is virtually no difference in meaning between "cognitive elite" in the Bell Curve sense and Young's "meritocracy", except that the first has retained its original meaning while the second transmuted into a pop culture meme with totally different connotations. As meritocracy in Young's sense is no longer the WP:COMMON meaning of his term, it makes some sense to use cognitive elite instead.

The specific phrase "cognitive elite" came into much more common use after the Bell Curve, most of it in responses espousing very different points of view than Murray's, so I don't think advocacy is a pressing issue here (a random sample of sources will come out anti Bell Curve). Anyway, there is a literature and a usage pattern that is ultimately connected to The Bell Curve but the term is synonymous with Michael Young's notion of "meritocracy", itself a satire of similar ideas that had been around for some time.

Nicholas Lemann has a couple of articles in the Atlantic on this that can be used as sources, one from 1994 reviewing Young's book (before The Bell Curve was published) and a 1996 piece A Cartoon Elite [2] with references to several other books besides Murray and Herrnstein (Young 1958, Milovan Djilas The New Class, Christopher Lasch Revolt of the Elites, Steven Brint In an Age of Experts). His summary of Young's book...

"From Young came the idea that not long after a society institutes mass educational sorting based on the results of IQ tests, a distinct high-IQ ruling class will begin to emerge. Because of the tendency of people in this class to marry fellow students at highly selective universities and pass on their IQ-rich genes to their offspring, over time the meritocratic upper class will more and more resemble a hereditary aristocracy. If this class absorbs the left-wing views that prevail in the universities, then once it is in power, it will resemble the arrogant Communist bureaucracy that was the subject of Djilas's book."

...makes it clear the concept is identical to cog-elite as popularized by Murray. Lemann's book The Big Test on the SAT probably has more on this. My point though is that there is enough of a broader topic here beyond the particular usage in The Bell Curve that its existence should be conveyed somehow. Unless the Cognitive Elite page is deleted without leaving any redirect we would be editorializing in any case by redirecting to this article on the book, which isn't the place to get into all the other literature and links to related pages. Sesquivalent (talk) 09:37, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

Coincidentally, Michael Young is also the author of To Merge or Not to Merge. Sesquivalent (talk) 10:01, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

• Support the proposed merge, but I'd also support just deleting Cognitive elite as not a notable encyclopedia topic. If there is an article that discusses this concept in a broader way than The Bell Curve, I'd support redirecting it there, too. If there isn't, but one is written later, the redirect can be re-targeted. But let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good: Cognitive elite should not be an article. Levivich 16:19, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Elite#Power_elite is pretty close, Elite theory is a laundry list to which cognitive elite could be added, social stratification would be ideal but with more work than the other two. There is by now a WP:SECONDARY literature on cognitive stratification besides The Bell Curve; the "hereditarian left" (Fredrik deBoer, Paige Harden) is now publishing books making the same points as Michael Young and Charles Murray. They even discuss assortative mating! From the introduction to deBoer's The Cult of Smart: "the ship has already sailed on selective breeding thanks to how we find partners in the twenty-first century, and liberals are more guilty of this selective breeding than anyone". Richard Nisbett in his hardcore environmentalist book on intelligence says there is no doubt that the upper classes are somewhat genetically smarter than the lower ones.

The left and right have started to converge on the basic facts of this subject and it is no longer accurate to treat it as a pet obsession of right wing eugenicists (Murray wants to abolish the SAT and advocates Universal Basic Income), or as very specifically tied to The Bell Curve. Between Lemann, deBoer, Harden and Nisbett there are enough ready to use recent sources. Sesquivalent (talk) 21:16, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

This is about a specific title. It is not the place to discuss or defend the underlying concept. Further, your editorializing on the supposed acceptance of some version of this topic has no bearing on the usage of the phrase in reliable sources. If sources about this perspective consistently use the phrase "cognitive elite" outside of discussions about the Bell Curve, we could evaluate those sources on their own merits. The sources you have indirectly suggested for this change are not usable to overturn the broader consensus here, because they do not represent the issue in a coherent or consistent way regarding the phrase "cognitive elite". Some pop-sci books misrepresent complex questions in order to pretend they have been answered, and their overconfidence is not a virtue. This problem is as old as science itself, but it has no bearing on this specific Wikipedia issues. To put it another way, this is especially weak for overturning Wikipedia's extremely well-established consensus on this strain of pseudoscience. Grayfell (talk) 23:19, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

You are in a minority of 2 (with 5 against and 1 unspecified) construing this discussion as being about the exact phrase "cognitive elite", as though we are editing a dictionary, rather than an encyclopedia topic or concept referenced by the phrase. The article to be merged and the suggested target of the merge both are about the concept. The complication that has arisen here is that the concept also happens to be referenced by some exact synonyms and quasi synonyms such as Young's meritocracy, bobos (David Brooks), creative class (Richard Florida), New Elite as Charles Murray now calls it, and others. There are multiple RS conjoining multiple works using these assorted terms, that state how the different words name the same thing.

Our disagreement here is about whether there should be a discussion of the broader context, involving multiple works besides The Bell Curve, in whichever article is the target article of a merge or redirect. Are you proposing to obstruct the addition of such material based on this sudden requirement of an exact match of the exact phrase, and now also suddenly excluding high quality secondary RS pieces by Lemann and David Brooks [3] by dismissing them as oversimplified?

As to pseudoscience, there is no consensus on or off Wikipedia that the Bell Curve arguments on social stratification (i.e. unrelated to race differences) are pseudo and I'm not even aware of anyone seriously claiming in print that they are. Lemann calls the idea a politicized cartoon and makes some counterarguments (arguably falsified by now in favor of Murray, as Brooks basically admits) but that's nowhere near as strong as calling the idea of a cognitive elite "pseudoscience". If cognitive stratification is pseudoscience, it is pretty odd that we have a long article on the book that treats it seriously and fails to mention that; certainly it would fail FRINGE. Do you have a source for the claim? Sesquivalent (talk) 10:18, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

The argument about social stratification has a whole lot to do with race (and gender). If readers of The Bell Curve believe Herrnstein-Murray about the cognitive elite and the notion that the US is basically a meritocracy, and if you ask them why the vast majority of top-paid positions go to white males, they'll answer: Well, it must be that women and Black people on the whole are just cognitively inferior. NightHeron (talk) 10:45, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

By "unrelated to race" I did not mean that nobody could possibly connect it to race, only that the chapters of The Bell Curve laying out the argument for cognitive elites and stratification refer only to the US as a whole, or data within the American white population. Other authors I listed also explicitly (deBoer) or implicitly (Young, Brooks) limit themselves to stratification within one group. They could all be wrong, but I don't think cognitive stratification per se was ever considered fringe or pseudoscience, and the predictions in The Bell Curve have held up well over time which is not a feature of pseudo. Sesquivalent (talk) 15:00, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

The existence of other words that might mean more or less the same thing doesn't change that this particular term is associated with this particular book. XOR'easter (talk) 00:29, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

factually inaccurate representation of book in article

In describing the inaccuracies of TBC's press coverage, the article mirrors them. It reads [emphasis mine throughout]:

• "The authors were reported throughout the popular press as arguing that these IQ differences are strictly genetic, when in fact they attributed IQ differences to both genes and the environment."

It goes on to quote the portion of the book in question:

• "The debate about whether and how much genes and environment have to do with ethnic differences remains unresolved"
• "It seems highly likely to us that both genes and the environment have something to do with racial differences."

In short: the authors stated that it's unresolved whether genes contribute anything at all the to racial IQ gaps, but that they personally believe that it's likely they contribute at least something. To paraphrase that as "they attributed IQ differences to both genes and the environment" is flatly untrue—one cannot be said to have "attributed X to Y" while one simultaneously states Y may have had no effect at all on X.

For that reason, I edited the article to say: "...when in fact they only claimed there was a likelihood that IQ differences were affected by both genes and the environment." That seemed to me the fairest encapsulation—the quote speaks for the rest. Or one can get rid of the Wikivoice altogether, and simply include the quotes as rebuttal to the false claims.

My edit was reverted, ostensibly because "the earlier wording was clearer and more accurate, as the reader can judge from the direct quotation".

I have no idea what the second clause means ("as the reader can judge")—but it's in no way "more accurate" to claim the authors attributed race differences in IQ to genes when they stated in clear English that it's unknown whether genes have contributed anything at all to those differences. There is no excuse for factually incorrect information in an article, and the fact that "the reader can judge for themself" based on a direct quotation is no defense of inaccuracy and false statements in Wikivoice. The article says something that is demonstrably untrue—ironically enough, in a section that attempts to describe all the untrue statements made about the article subject.

Barring some convincing explanation of how it's "more accurate" to say the authors "attributed differences to genes"—when in fact they flatly stated that it was unresolved whether genes contributed anything to those differences—I will undo the reversion. Thanks! Elle Kpyros (talk) 05:37, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

There is possibly some over reliance on Murray's post at AEI in that section, that can be shortened, but if we are quoting that, his final point has also been made by several third parties (including ideological opponents) and is more important than many of the back and forth details that do get space: "in all the critiques of The Bell Curve in particular and my work more generally, no one ever accompanies their charges with direct quotes of what I’ve actually said". Three such parties that come to mind are Sam Harris in his podcast a few years ago, one of Vox's own reporters commenting on Vox's hit piece on Murray and Harris (the article by Harden, Nisbett and Turkheimer cited in multiple Wikipedia pages) that resulted from that, and one of the responses that Harden et al quoted in their followup piece that was forced by this observation, i.e., that their article attacking Murray did not include a single quotation of his own words from either the podcast or the book.

I agree, though, that the position of Murray and Herrnstein in the book should not be presented as being more definite than it was, and the simplest way to do that is to quote them in full and let their statements speak for themselves. Sesquivalent (talk) 06:40, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed the phrase altogether, along with the unsourced preceding clause The authors were reported throughout the popular press as arguing that these IQ differences are strictly genetic.... The entire section on Race and Intelligence, however, remains a train-wreck of false balance. More work to be done. Generalrelative (talk) 06:48, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Update: I've made a bit of progress shoveling out the manure but the section's still a mess. Generalrelative (talk) 07:03, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

The Bob Herbert quote should not be the finale of the article. The Gardner quote that had been in that position until today was fair, accurate and worked very well as a coda to the article. Herbert's statement is the single most negative thing published about the book in any major venue, and it belongs to the first wave of enraged but superficial denunciations. This article gives space to Nicholas Lemann's explanation of why the first responses were of that nature (advance copies of the book had not been sent out, and the regression analyses were new and undigested for another year) whereas Gardner's piece is a long and relatively academic review that engages with the content and clearly demonstrates that he had read the book in detail (he claims to have reread it as well). Besides all this, putting the Herbert quote at the end reads like a blatant attempt to end the article with a dramatically worded accusation tying the book to the word "nigger" as a theatrical climax ending. Sesquivalent (talk) 07:54, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

• I think Bob Herbert's quote should be excised altogether: it's a bombastic and unserious critique and undeserving of inclusion. In any case, concluding with it trivializes the serious arguments.
• I see there was a discussion above about surveys by Rindermann, et al. I do think they merit inclusion—it's a bit churlish to claim they aren't representative of "experts" in the field of intelligence while quoting the opinions of paleontologist Stephen J. Gould, linguist Noam Chomsky, et al. Ditto for the complaints that TBC wasn't peer-reviewed—it wasn't a journal article, and the vast majority of its criticism referenced here wasn't peer-reviewed, either. I don't really see how the Pioneer Fund stuff adds anything, either—it's not a critique of the book's substance. What's wrong with sticking to substantive critiques?
• Part of the article acknowledged the very real racial gaps in IQ: "parts of the book which dealt with racial group differences on IQ". Yet elsewhere the article is squeamish: in the lead (" purported connections between race and intelligence") and later ("statistical data making the assertion that blacks were, on average, less intelligent than whites"). The fact is that, as measured by IQ, blacks are on average less intelligent than whites—so while it's good to clarify that "intelligence" in TBC is measured by IQ, using weasel-words like "purported" and "assertion" serves no purpose other than editorializing in Wikivoice.

Thanks for everyone's input! Elle Kpyros (talk) 04:57, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

This is almost breathtaking in its backwardness: The fact is that, as measured by IQ, blacks are on average less intelligent than whites—so while it's good to clarify that "intelligence" in TBC is measured by IQ, using weasel-words like "purported" and "assertion" serves no purpose other than editorializing in Wikivoice. Suffice it to say we will not be changing the article in any way to give credence to WP:RACISTBELIEFS. The word "purported" is there precisely to avoid doing so. I'm pretty sure the rest of the above comment can simply be ignored as wildly misinformed. Generalrelative (talk) 06:39, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree that "purported" is an inappropriate weasel word here. The black-white IQ gap is an uncontroversial, well-documented fact. Stonkaments (talk) 10:25, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

The article does not say that the black-white IQ gap is "purported"; it uses the word "purported" as follows: "purported connections between race and intelligence". The notion that IQ is the same as intelligence is widely disputed among experts. It would be a gross violation of WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE to assert as a fact in wikivoice that intelligence is connected to race. NightHeron (talk) 12:38, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

NightHeron is correct that this is the operative distinction here. The mainstream view on the matter is summed up by

• IQ tests are valid measures of the kind of intelligence necessary to do well in academic work. But if the purpose is to assess intelligence in a broader sense, the validity of IQ tests is questionable.[4]
• and to base a concept of intelligence on test scores alone is to ignore many important aspects of mental ability.[5]

Any time we report the views of someone who fails to observe this distinction, claiming instead that blacks are on average less intelligent than whites, we will be adding "purported" or something similar to distinguish their view from the mainstream one. Calling this "weasel wording" is either careless reading of the current debate or else careless reading of WP:WEASEL. In either case, more care is needed in order to contribute constructively to this topic area. Generalrelative (talk) 15:34, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Nobody is arguing that IQ is synonymous with intelligence; IQ tests are estimates of intelligence. And for all the hand-wringing and criticism, I have yet to see any other intelligence test that is nearly as predictive or reliable. Elsewhere on Wikipedia, IQ says: "Despite these objections, clinical psychologists generally regard IQ scores as having sufficient statistical validity for many clinical purposes." And, even if you think IQ only measures "the kind of intelligence necessary to do well in academic work", do you think that type of intelligence might be an important predictor of educational achievement and income? 15:58, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Nobody is arguing that IQ is synonymous with intelligence –– Excellent, then there is nothing more to discuss here. I trust that you will be striking your previous comment which misconstrued the issue, since it's now clear to you that we're not discussing differences in average IQ test performance but rather purported differences in intelligence. As for the rest, I'm not super jazzed about the prospect of debating basic epistemic fallacies with you, e.g. assuming that incomplete assessments represent valid "estimates", or that measurability is a measure of reality –– which would imply that, for instance, a person's "net worth" is in fact their worth as a human being –– so I'll just note them and move on. We're certainly not here to discuss what I think. We're here to discuss how best to present mainstream views based on reliable sources (from the context it seems as though you're unaware that green text is quotation, in this case from two top-quality sources; these are their views, not mine). Generalrelative (talk) 16:18, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm afraid you may have misunderstood my previous comment, because there's nothing to strike from it. IQ tests are a valid measure of intelligence (in fact, the best measure of intelligence that we have available); therefore, large and well-documented racial differences in IQ indicate a connection between race and intelligence. Simple as that. No amount of hand-wringing over definitions or sophistry about epistemic fallacies will change that fact. Stonkaments (talk) 21:43, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

If you're going to describe my effort to explain to you why you're wrong as hand wringing then you don't deserve to be spoken to like a grown-up anymore. You've completely ignored the top-quality sources I presented and instead insisted on relying on your own ability to reason from the armchair. Generalrelative (talk) 01:44, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Simple as that. You have a lot to learn about statistics. I don't know if you should start with reading Confounding factor or have a look at the more basic stuff first, but "confounding factor" is what you should be looking for. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:53, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

@Generalrelative: My error: it's apparently listed as the opposite of weasely: WP:DOUBT. Thanks for the education! Elle Kpyros (talk) 19:10, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

You mean MOS:DOUBT. (WP:DOUBT is something else entirely.) It says, Words such as supposed, apparent, alleged, and purported can imply that a given point is inaccurate, which is exactly what it should do in this case. The intro of MOS:WTW says, certain expressions should be used with caution. We already do that. We apply the word "purported" because it is appropriate here. --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:43, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

^^^ Precisely this. Generalrelative (talk) 04:33, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Should it not be "purported genetic connections between race and intelligence"? The "black-white IQ gap" (which is in reality not a "gap", which suggests two bell curves with no overlap between them, but rather a small shift between two strongly overlapping bell curves) is literally a connection between race and intelligence. The consensus is that the causation runs from race to social and economic status, from social and economic status to education, and from social and economic status and education to intelligence, right? --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:25, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

The connection is "purported" for at least two reasons: there's no clear scientific consensus on how to define "intelligence", and, secondly, The Bell Curve, when speaking about the purported connection, assumes that there's likely to be a genetic component in it, a belief that is not supported by any scientific evidence. Perhaps we could insert "partially genetic". Of course, "connection" could mean different things to different people, which I suppose is another reason to qualify it with "purported". In short, none of the 3 terms "connection", "race", or "intelligence" has a clear scientific definition. NightHeron (talk) 14:54, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree that "purported genetic connections between race and intelligence" makes the most sense, as that is the cause of (most of) the controversy. Stonkaments (talk) 14:57, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

With that wording (or with "partially genetic") it wouldn't be clear that the whole discussion of a connection between race and intelligence is problematic because of the lack of clarity on what the terms mean, not only because the genetic theory is fringe. So I'd be in favor of keeping the wording as it is. Otherwise, I think we'd need more explanation, and that would be too much detail for the lede. NightHeron (talk) 15:03, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Race and intelligence goes into ample detail into the "problematic" nature of the terminology in discussing these connections; this article is not the place to hash that out. You're essentially saying we should add "purported" as an expression of MOS:DOUBT over the legitimacy of the terms themselves, and any connections that can be drawn between them, which is not appropriate for an encyclopedia.

By that logic, we would need to qualify every mention of the word "race" or "intelligence" in the article with purported—"those with purported high intelligence", etc. Stonkaments (talk) 15:24, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Nonsense. See my comment with the two quotes above for an explanation of the correct use of words like "purported". Generalrelative (talk) 15:41, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Oh right! Only "race" and "intelligence" were on my vagueness radar. Now that you mention it, "connection" has the same weakness. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:07, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

To respond to Stonkaments' last comment, certainly not all claims about race or claims about intelligence are problematic, so mentions of those words are not normally preceded by "purported". However, any claimed connection between race and intelligence (which are 3 vague words, none of which has a well-defined scientific meaning) is problematic. By connection many people mean correlation. Here's an example of something I'd never say except to make a pedagogical point about this: "A far lower percentage of Black people than white people voted for Trump in 2020, and a far lower percentage of Black people than white people believed the stolen election lie. It seems that Black people on average are superior to white people in the type of intelligence that's vital in a democracy." Statements of that sort, whether white-supremacist or Black-supremacist, are misleading and unscientific, and they often just reflect the speaker's desire to promote one race and denigrate another race. NightHeron (talk) 17:59, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

So we're in agreement then that IQ tests, the most reliable and predictive test of intelligence that we have, have shown a large and well-documented gap between black and white IQs. But any claims that this gap indicates any sort of connection between race and intelligence is "problematic". Gotcha. Stonkaments (talk) 21:10, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

No, haven't you noticed? We're in complete disagreement regarding your POV on R&I. It's a fringe POV that has been rejected again and again by the scientific mainstream.

IQ tests are a great measure of intelligence if one defines intelligence to be that which is measured by IQ tests.

Anyone who has ever studied science should understand that a correlation does not imply a meaningful connection. That's basic logic. NightHeron (talk) 02:10, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

The funny thing about facts is they have a habit of still being true even if you don't believe in them. Stonkaments (talk) 02:42, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

And it ain't the stuff you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's the stuff you're damn sure of that just ain't so. Please read WP:TRUTH and drop the stick now. Generalrelative (talk) 02:57, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Use purport if you like (twice in one sentence is excessive and obvious), but the comments by Stonkaments and especially the first one by Hob Gadling are correct, which makes the pompous corrections rather amusing. It is only the connection to genetics that logically requires "purported". The statement that the observed large testing differences between groups necessarily implies a substantial difference in average "intelligence", however you might ultimately define that word, is mainstream, does not require treating IQ (or "g") as being equivalent to intelligence, or intelligence being one dimensional, or any of the other sorts of cavils being floated here. Well regarded experts haved stated it without qualification, in print. This is an old and no longer controversial point from the psychometric IQ debates that has nothing to do with the question of what causes the differences. Example from three of today's leading opponents of genetic theories of IQ differences, from their above mentioned rant in Vox against Charles Murray:

"Race differences in average IQ score. People who identify as black or Hispanic in the US and elsewhere on average obtain lower IQ scores than people who identify as white or Asian. That is simply a fact, and stating it plainly offers no support in itself for a biological interpretation of the difference. To what extent is the observed difference in cognitive function a reflection of the myriad ways black people in the US experience historical, social, and economic disadvantage — earning less money, suffering more from chronic disease, dying younger, living in more dangerous and chaotic neighborhoods, attending inferior schools? Or, following Murray, is IQ an essential inborn characteristic of a group’s genetic background, a biologically inherent deficit in cognitive ability that in part causes their other disadvantages?"

(Eric Turkheimer, Kathryn Paige Harden, and Richard E. Nisbett, "Charles Murray is once again peddling junk science about race and IQ" ,Vox, May 18, 2017)

Note the lack of qualifiers (purported, supposed, hypothetical, etc). Unless you know of some difference between "cognitive function" and "intelligence" this is a clear example of passing from IQ differences to statements about intelligence. I can explain some of the reasons here if needed, but the above should be enough to make the point that some of the loudest voices here have very confidently wrong notions of what is and is not fringe in this subject. Sesquivalent (talk) 11:43, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

You're making a straw-man argument, since the use of the word purported does not imply that what follows is fringe. It implies that what follows is an opinion, not a fact. In this case the opinion is so vague -- because of the absence of any agreed upon definition of connection, race, or intelligence -- that it's absurd to call it a "fact", as Stonkaments does. The belief in genetic differences in intelligence between races is fringe, but the belief in a "connection between race and intelligence" depends on how one defines the terms. If intelligence is defined as what IQ tests measure, if "connection" is defined as correlation, and if "race" is defined as what's socially perceived to be divisions between races, then the claimed "connection" follows from those definitions. NightHeron (talk) 11:56, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Also, I've read plenty of rants in my day, and Turkheimer et al. ain't one of them. XOR'easter (talk) 17:57, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Actually, The "black-white IQ gap" [..] is literally a connection between race and intelligence was not correct, as IQ does not equal intelligence. I should probably have kept out of this, instead of falling in that simple trap. I miss MjolnirPants... --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:04, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

As stated above, IQ does not have to be the same as intelligence for the inference to be correct, because the reasoning is not "IQ differences and no other information, therefore...". It's rather, "given what else we know, the pattern of large group differences on IQ tests and subtests implies...", which is no longer a disputed inference in this subject because enough other information has accumulated to narrow the possibilities for objection down to unserious Bigfoot UFO scenarios. The distinction between intelligence and IQ has always been a SKYISBLUE standard disclaimer, and the experts I quoted mention it while also making the undisputed inference in plain English.

Your suggested phrasing involving purported genetic has the virtue of being correct and capturing the crux of the controversy about the book (the lead is supposed to summarize things, is it not?), while not rubbing the reader's face in this matter of the IQ differences robustly reflecting a real ability difference. That seems to split the baby quite Solomonically. Sesquivalent (talk) 21:00, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

IQ does not have to be the same as intelligence for the inference to be correct You are obviously unaware of the fact that the mathematical relation "is significantly correlated with" is not transitive. If "intelligence" (as defined by the people who did the math on the correlation) is correlated with IQ, and IQ is correlated with "race" (as defined by US authorities), it does not follow that "intelligence" is correlated with "race". Your deduction is incorrect, and that is one of the reasons why Wikipedia does not rely on Wikipedia users' deductions but on reliable sources.

When I wrote what you are now agreeing with, I was not thinking it through. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:08, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

• Uninvolved comment: Stop the bickering and put it up to an RfC. Make your strongest arguments in one comment. Be done with this patheticness. ––FormalDude ^talk 02:39, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

What I wrote has prompted some heated discussion—and so to broadly respond:

• Genetic causes of race differences in intelligence haven't been established to a level of scientific certainty—which is exactly what TBC stated. Genetic causes were not purported by H&M (see beginning of this thread), so adding "genetics" to the sentence in question would misrepresent the book and be factually incorrect. As per my original edit, it is baldly false to claim that TBC "purports" that B/W IQ differences have a genetic cause. The authors make clear they think genetics likely makes some unknown contribution—but they're exquisitely clear that they do not claim it does.
• @Stonkaments: makes excellent points. TBC is premised on the statement "IQ scores match, to a first degree, whatever it is that people mean when they use the word intelligent, or smart in ordinary language." By their definition, blacks are on average less intelligent than whites. Others claim that IQ tests do not measure what's commonly considered "intelligence"—or even argue there is no such quality of intelligence and/or that it can't be quantified—and these people appear to tightly control and jealously guard this article's editing. But if we were to follow their guidance, much of the article (and a host of others) would be objectionable, if not outright "incorrect"—beginning with the first sentence:: "...the authors argue that human intelligence is substantially influenced by both inherited and environmental factors and that it is a better predictor of many personal outcomes…" H&M's argument is premised on IQ scores (and similar measures)—so if IQ doesn't measure human intelligence, how is that sentence acceptable in Wikivoice?
• @Sesquivalent: also contributes pointedly: no one who accepts that IQ tests have even basic validity claims that blacks don't have lower average intelligence than whites—they simply euphemize it, as do Turkenheimer, et al. in acknowledging as a "deficit in cognitive ability". Note the response: because of the absence of any agreed upon definition of connection, race, or intelligence… it's absurd to call it a "fact". This tendentious and unhelpful assertion illuminates the crux of the issue:
• To suggest that racial differences in intelligence don't exist because "race" and "intelligence" lack "any agreed-upon definition" is pure sophistry and makes building a accurate encyclopedia impossible. Doing so flatly contradicts the "scientific consensus" that has become the trier of fact for much of Wikipedia. The simple truth is that—in the scientific world, in Wikipedia, and amongst the public—IQ tests are broadly accepted to measure (albeit imperfectly) what is commonly called "intelligence". A cursory glance at our other articles reveals this to be true: that IQ tests measure intelligence isn't hotly debated in, for example, the Sex differences in intelligence article—since men and women have roughly equal average intelligence, there's no need for "social-justice" crusaders to distort or disappear the truth. Race and sports doesn't begin by claiming race is a construct with no established meaning, and thus nothing can be said about a "connection" between race and sports. Only in the context of Race and intelligence does the word "intelligence" (along with "race") become so ineffable as to be unquantifiable, if not outright indefinable—obviously because the very real racial differences in average intelligence are too malodorous and unpalatable for some. There is a cadre of editors who police R&I and related articles, making sure they don't reflect the obvious truth—which in turn, makes those articles incompatible with the rest of the encyclopedia. This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed in order to have accurate, consistent, and NPOV articles. Obscuring or omitting the truth because it is reminiscent of ugly history or makes people uncomfortable is no way to build an encyclopedia together.

Thanks for everyone's input! Elle Kpyros (talk) 22:55, 17 November 2021 (UTC)