Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 31

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Failed "good article" nomination

This article failed good article nomination. This is how the article, as of August 25, 2006, compares against the six good article criteria:

1. Well written?: High level of writing

2. Factually accurate?: Appears good but contested

3. Broad in coverage?: Very well referenced

4. Neutral point of view?: Topic is inherently controversial, difficult to maintain a neutral POV though there are many level editors trying

5. Article stability? Unstable, multiple revert/edit wars. [Reason for failing GA]

6. Images?: Multiple graphs, good photgraphs

When these issues are addressed, the article can be resubmitted for consideration. Thanks for your work so far. --Ifnord 14:23, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

secondary sources to establish notability

many scholar have made singular claims and theories, which we do not have space or reason to mention in the main text of a summary style article -- not to mention an entire paragraph. a citation in a review paper, textbook, or the discussion of a primary reserach article could be used to establish notability. (another possible way to establish relevance is to show that they are a direct response to some other notable idea.) Jencks' labeling bias theory and Blair's speculative hypothesis about gF' being realted to the BW gap are two of those kinds.

Jencks: only sources that cite Jencks' "labeling bias" theory are book reviews and Jencks himself in describing his book. no mention could be found in textbooks or primary literature search.

Here are sources which aren't book reviews or authored by Jencks which neverthless mention his concept of "labeling bias". Hope this will settle it.[1],[2],[3],[4],[5] I also forgot to mention they mention Jencks by name as well.--Ramdrake 18:10, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. That's very helpful. Now we need to use these sources to present Jencks' theory in a way that's integrated with the rest of the text. It should take no more than a sentence to describe his idea, and it should not require quotations. --Rikurzhen 18:24, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Ramdrake, you can't put an obviously disputed argument that the IQ differences are cultural rather than genetic in the intro of a section. The part about "innate" versus "developed" is already covered, so all that remains is their claim that the gap is due to environment. --Rikurzhen 19:20, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

It is my understanding that the point that the IQ differences are genetic in nature is also disputed. I don't see why they shouldn't both be mentioned.The debate isn't whether there are cultural/environmental/bias issues that come into the gap. I think everybody agrees on at least one of these at least partially accounting for the gap. The issue is whether there are also genetic issues that account for the gap.--Ramdrake 19:30, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

The text says Their assertion is that non-cultural environmental factors cause gaps measured by the tests, rather than any possible innate difference based on genetics. As phrased, this is an argument that the gap is entirely environmental, which would not be "intro" material. --Rikurzhen 19:49, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

1)This isn't the general introduction, this is a section introduction. 2)I still don't see why this position in the debate shouldn't also be mentioned at this point. I think it is most germane, especially for NPOV considerations.--Ramdrake 20:01, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Is it not clear that this section is divided into topical sections? -- 1) intro giving the background of agreement upon which the disagreement rests, 2) arguments for culture-only (w/ a minimal statemnent about disagreement) 3) arguments for partly-genetic (again w/ minimal statement about disagreement) and 4) about divsion of expert opinion. -- The text in question belongs in section 2 rather than 1 if in any. --Rikurzhen 20:10, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Moreover, that IQ is "developed" (i.e heritable) rather than "innate" (i.e. genetic) is common knowledge. The argument that between group differences in IQ are therefore not the result of "any possible innate differences based on genetics" is not only a matter of dispute, but an argument you will not find made by the other sophisticated supports of culture-only theories that are widely cited. --Rikurzhen 20:13, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

An argument you will find made is this: Because IQ is strictly a phenotype, as is every observable or measurable human characteristic, it does not, by itself, support any inference concerning the cause of either individual or group differences in IQ. (Jensen, 1999) I see no reason to doubt that this is the mainstream view (it is repeated in the general by Mountain & Risch 2004). --Rikurzhen 17:39, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

There really needs to be a section, Environmental explanations - it seems conflated with Culture only. --JereKrischel 21:28, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Is this in reference to Blair or Jencks? --Rikurzhen 21:58, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Jencks point about the BW gap is also made by Jensen (1999): Because IQ is strictly a phenotype, as is every observable or measurable human characteristic, it does not, by itself, support any inference concerning the cause of either individual or group differences in IQ. [6] Jencks' first conclusion is universally accepted. His second conclusion, as summarized in the article, would be in conflict with Jensen. Can we confirm that Jencks literally means that from IQ data alone we can deduce that the BW gap has no genetic component? Or is the second concluison simply a restatement of the first? --Rikurzhen 22:02, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

blair

Blair: peer commentary makes no mention of theory about BW gap. apparently, no one found it notable enough to mention among the many peer commentaries aimed direclty at this paper. paper is too new to be mentioned in other sources. --Rikurzhen 17:33, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Stanley Porteus

why a whole paragraph about Stanley Porteus? --Rikurzhen 01:25, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

environment = culture

from the POV of quantitative genetics, environment and culture are indistinguishable. i'm not sure that there is precident for dividing the two. the term "environment" can be taken as more general than culture, and used in its place. --Rikurzhen 21:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

From a number of other POVs, they are quite distinguishable (I would say the POV of psychologists, sociologists, ethnologues, etc.)--Ramdrake 21:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I understand that the words have different meanings, but WRT the question of what causes the BW gap, it has been customary to divide the hypotheses into two camps, based in part of the mathematical constructs used in quantative genetics. There is excellent documentation for the two camp split. Can you provide documentation for a three camp split? --Rikurzhen 21:53, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but the use of "culture-only" seems to be a Jensen/Pioneer Fund grantee affectation (he parenthentically calls it, 0% genetic-100% environmental). --JereKrischel 22:06, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Reynolds (2000): Few, if any, who have studied the issues and the science involved take seriously either proposition that race differences in performance on mental tests are all due to environmental influences or to genetic influences. Rather, the Environmental × Genetic Influence interaction model is the dominant model among those who reject the argument that differences are artifacts of test bias. Even so, the relative contribution of environment and of genetics is hotly debated between the two most extreme positions of 80% environmental/20% genetic and 20% environmental/80% genetic. I will not engage this debate here beyond noting that my own position is that race differences in mental tests scores are related to the interactionist approach and are a result of an ongoing process of reciprocal determinism over the course of the life span. --- Describes 2 positions, and does not distinguish culture from environment. You will find many similar treatments, including Snyderman and Rothman (1987). --Rikurzhen 22:10, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Rikurzhen, they don't even use the word "culture". This article seems to use the terminology "environmentalist" and "hereditarian". It also seems that the idea of "culture-only" (0% genetic, as proposed by Jensen), is really a straw man - environmentalists don't seem to be denying any genetic component, they're only arguing as to its magnitude. There may well be a split between primary hereditarians, who believe it is at least 50% genetic, and primary environmentalists, who believe it is no more than 5% genetic. --JereKrischel 22:11, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I only object to the creation of a division between culture and environment. The tweaking of wording for maximal NPOV is always helpful. You'll note that we describe Reyonld's conclusions in the expert opinion section. --Rikurzhen 22:14, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I object to the conflation of "culture" and "environment", although since the sources we're using do the conflation, it isn't like I can fix their references :). Since even Jensen, et.al., use "environmental" parenthentically when they use a loaded term like "culture-only", it seems more proper to have the section labeled "environmental explanations"...furthermore, if we want two sides to it, we shouldn't use the weakest straw man of 0% genetic on the environmentalist side - the idea of 80/20, 20/80 seems a bit more reasonable to me. --JereKrischel 22:21, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure what the purpose would be of distinguishing between culture and environment because wherever IQ tests are given, biotic and abiotic environmental features (e.g. nutrition, exposure to contaminants, incidence of infectous disease) are largely functions of the culture. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:29, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

How is where you live a function of culture? How is contamination from a plant up-river a function of culture? Although diet and risk activity may be a function of culture (which you could I suppose, call voluntary environmental factors), there are certainly innumerable environmental factors completely unrelated to culture - no matter if you listen to classical music, or hip-hop, if you live in a smoggy area, the environment does not distinguish between your lungs based on culture. --JereKrischel 22:33, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Some cultures are egalitarian, others are stratified. Some are industrial, some are not. Just these two dimensions allow us to plot out a range of cultural variation, and some of these cultures will divide its members into people who suffer from obesity, people who are malnourished, and people who have poersonal trainers. Some of these cultures will divide their people into those who live next to toxic waste sites and others who live surrounded by trees far from any heavy industry. Of course these things are cultural! Slrubenstein | Talk 22:41, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Are hurricanes cultural, by your definition? Lightning strikes? Earthquakes? I think that culture can be seen as a subset of environmental factors, but it does not encompass them all. I think you may be confusing correlation with causation, as well - the environmentalist POV asserts that environmental factors are causal to the differences we observe, I don't think you can make the same case for culture. --JereKrischel 23:09, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Of course not. But whether some people live in trailers in flood zones versus houses on high land with cellars is cultural. As to correlation and causation, I never mentioned either. I would agree that poor nutrition is likely to be a strong cause of lower IQ, but my point is that many cases of malnutrition are the result of cultural systems. Moreover, I see no reason why other cultural dynamics MAY cause lower IQ. Certainly, the reason so many recent immigrants scored low on IQ tests administered around WWI had to do with culture. Now, you can argue that a better IQ test can compensate for the cultural factors and you may very well be right. That doesn´t remove culture as a part of the equation though. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I am not wentirely sure what you mean by "voluntary environmental features" but culture is largely involuntary. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:43, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I beg to differ - changing your culture seems much easier than changing all the other environmental factors that can affect you. --JereKrischel 23:09, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I guess we just differ. I see US. embassy or oil company personnel in Ecuador and they shop at US outlets and eat at TGIFridays or Pizza Hut - it seems that they cannot travel to another culture without dragging around a bubble of their own culture with them. I know Peace Corps Volunteers who do everything they can to change their culture; they do so in good faith ind indeed change a lot - but still depend on the music they carry with them from their old environment, books published in the US, and talk (often articulately) about culture shock. And I have read travelogue from people who have lived for years in a non-natal culture and they mostly reflect on their feelings of alienation. I wouldn´t limit this to Americans. Graham Greene´s novels capture this quite well. In short, I have seen practically no evidence that it is easy to change one´s culture. It is easy to leave New York City to live in the Amazon, or to leave Santa Fe to live in Norway, in short, easy to change physical environments. But culture? Very very hard. I guess we just disagree. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:41, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't care whether you call it cultural or environmental explanations. There are reasons to prefer one to the other, but neither appears prima facie preferred. All I object to is the notion that we can ourselves pick out certain explanations as being about "environment" and others as being about "culture" per WP:NOR. The term "environnment" means everything not genetic in the language of quantitative genetics, which is why it comes up all the time when "culture" might seem like a more nature word to use. --Rikurzhen 22:46, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I think perhaps my issue is that "culture" is not a more natural word to use - it comes with specific connotations, and it seems to have been used by folk like Jensen, et. al., to specifically denigrate the environmentalist position. --JereKrischel 23:09, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't see "culture" as a term of abuse, but I could be persuaded. --Rikurzhen 23:14, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I think it is only a term of abuse to those who wish to abuse it. The same can be said for "genetic."Slrubenstein | Talk 23:41, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

converging data?

Stripped from article for discussion:

To support these claims, they most often cite four main lines of converging data:

1. Worldwide Black–White–East Asian differences in IQ, reaction time, and brain size. In the United States, Black-White IQ differences are observable at every age above 3 years, within every occupation or socioeconomic level, in every region of the country, and at every time since the invention of ability tests.
2. The magnitude of race differences on different IQ subtests correlates with the extent to which those subtests measures g, which also correlates with measures of the subtests heritability
3. The rising heritability of IQ with age (within all races; on average in the developed world heritability starts at 20% in infants, rises to 40% in middle childhood, and peaks at 80% in adulthood); and the virtual disappearance (~0.0) by adulthood of shared environmental effects on IQ (for example, family income, education, and home environment), making adopted siblings no more similar in IQ than strangers
4. US comparisons of both parents to children and siblings to each other finds regression to differing means for different races (85 for Blacks and 100 for Whites) across the entire range of IQs, despite the fact that siblings are matched for shared environment and genetic heritage, with regression unaffected by family socioeconomic status and generation examined

---

First of all, what is "converging data" mean? They certainly aren't converging on anything - these data sets seem to be on completely different axes (heritability of IQ vs. age is one line of data, but how can it possibly relate to east asian brain sizes??)

Secondly, all of these "main lines" are presented as fact, rather than the conclusions of the studies from which they came. I'd like to put some of this back in, but it seems like it needs a lot of work. --JereKrischel 22:02, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

That the data is converging and that the data supports their hypothesis is the claim of R&J. These results themselves also happen to be, afaik, not contested. (We can double check this against the response articles.) What is obviously contested is their implication for the cause of the BW gap. --Rikurzhen 22:04, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but when I see something like, "observable at every age above 3 years, within every occupation or socioeconomic level, in every region of the country, and at every time since the invention of ability tests", I am dumbfounded. They couldn't possibly have tested every single age, every single occupation, every single socioeconomic level, every single region, and accounted for every single test every administered since the invention of "ability tests". This is pure hyperbole, and glosses over so many details, it's disturbing. Saying that a certain set of data indicates one thing - asserting that a difference is observable all the time in every situation implies that these results are arbitrarily repeatable, which I'm sure you would agree they are not. --JereKrischel 22:17, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

It's paraphrased directly from Jensen. What it means is that each of these variables has been tested independently (at least), not all at once. --Rikurzhen

Then it should be stated that this is Jensen's assertion, not bald fact. It would be better to list out that these factors have been considered, rather than to use the exaggeration, "every" - studies "controlled for region, occupation, socioeconomic level" may be appropriate, but a exaggerated paraphrase stating flatly that every case (even if only individually), is true is definitely POV pushing. --JereKrischel 23:15, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Jensen is doing the reviewing, not the studying. His published conclusion (now 8 years old) can be taken as non-disputed by default unless someone has actually disputed it. I don't see a problem with the wording; but I could be blind to how it is read. --Rikurzhen 23:18, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

This rolls into the case you mentioned earlier regarding "reported to"...this case is much farther along, IMHO, but the same issues apply - his conclusions should be indicated as his conclusions, not as fact, regardless if they have been specifically disputed (which, I'm sure we could find a reference for, in such a contentious field). --JereKrischel 23:27, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

You're missing where the controversy actually lies. I've opened this question as a new thread below. --Rikurzhen 23:39, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

New problem: you have no basis besides your own opinion to describe/treat Jensen's report as "hyperbole". we cannot substitute our own opinions for those of published experts. --Rikurzhen 23:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Whether or not we believe it is hyperbole, we have to present it as his opinion, not as unadulterated fact. And of course, see below for examples of the arguments over interpretation. --JereKrischel 00:36, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

The data is not hyperbole. I know of no claim that it is. The implication of the data for the BW gap is obviously controversial. --Rikurzhen 01:13, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Interpreting the data in such a way to assert that everything points inextricably towards a single conclusion (that a worldwide BW gap exists, no matter what age, region, etc, etc) is hyperbole. I guess I'm asserting that the interpretation of the data is being presented, not the data itself. Because of that, it comes across like hyperbole. If the data itself were presented (i.e., differences in cranial sizes map to climactic zones moreso than "race", or some studies indicate larger cranial sizes for whites, and others contradict that), it wouldn't be nearly as controversial. Telling the audience what the data means (i.e., there exists a worldwide B-W gap in brain size, IQ, etc), rather than just giving them the data (5 studies found blacks with bigger brains, 2 studies found blacks with smaller brains, etc), is where I have a problem with the original presentation. --JereKrischel 04:07, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Review articles give conclusions where they can (see below). This is one of the cases where we can. (Note I found one of the 4 to be mostly Jensen's work, so I changed the article to reflect this.) --Rikurzhen 04:13, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

doubt about B-W-EA diiffrences

does anyone doubt the existence of B-W-EA differences in IQ, brain size and reaction time -- enough to not treat it as the mainstream scientific consensus? For example, I do not see this claim in the response to R&J's PPPL article. --Rikurzhen 23:39, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

found this quote on an otherwise disturbingly POV article on crainometry: "Rushton has been accused by other researchers of misrepresenting the data. When they have reanalyzed the data, Zack Cernovsky et al. argue that many of Rushton's claims are incorrect." --JereKrischel 23:41, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Here's the link [7], Although Rushton (1988, 1990a, 1991) implied that Blacks are consistently found to have smaller brains than Whites, some of the studies listed in his reviews actually show opposite trends: North American Blacks were superior to American Whites in brain weight (see Tobias, 1970, p. 6:1355 g vs. 1301 g) or were found to have cranial capacities favorably comparable to the average for various samples of Caucasians (see Herskovits, 1930) and number of excess neurons larger than many groups of Caucasoids, for example, the English and the French (see Tobias, 1970, p. 9). --JereKrischel 23:43, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

The APA report (in the form of Neisser 1997) says there is a small but significant difference. --Rikurzhen 23:46, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Moreover, the claim that there isn't a B-W-EA diff in cranial capacity would be news to physical anthropologists (e.g. Beals 1984). --Rikurzhen 23:49, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

From the same ref: Rushton implied that Beals et al. presented large-scale evidence for racial inferiority of the Blacks with respect to cranial size. De facto, extensive statistical analyses by Beals et al. showed that cranial size varies primarily with climatic zones (e.g., distance from the equator), not race. According to Beals et al., the correlations of brain size to race are spurious: smaller crania are found in warmer climates, irrespective of race. Sounds like enough contention to derail it as being considered "mainstream" or "consensus". --JereKrischel 00:17, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

That the major cause of cranial size diffs is climate (via evolution) does not mean that it doesn't also vary by race. (But see also [8] for the most recent extension of this line of thinking.) As with the other comments, this does not chanllenge the basic claim that cranial size varies between races. The important finding WRT what we write in the article is the APA report. --Rikurzhen 01:18, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I think I agreew with JereKrischel. Physical anthropologists have documented variation in cranial capacity but the claim that cranial capacity correlates with differences in IQ is highly controversial. Ralph Holloway is the person to go to on this topic. He has forwarded robust arguments that even in hominid evolution reorganization of crania was more important than changes in cranial capacity to the development of human intelligence (manifested in tool making and perhaps more complex social arrangements).Slrubenstein | Talk 00:31, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I am 100% certain that the claim that brain size correlates with IQ among Whites is not at all controversial (r=.4 controlling for age, sex). You can read about this in various review articles written ca. 2000-2005 (see Neuroscience and intelligence and Thompson and Gray 2004). At this point, the open research questions are which specific regions/structures of the brain are responsible for the correlation. It is, of course, controversial to claim that the BWEA diffs in brain size are evidence that the BWEA gaps are genetic. --Rikurzhen 01:12, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, perhaps the issue is whehter this is a meaningful correlation. I suggest thaqt thee are physical anthropologists who do not consider this a meaningful correlation. Variation in cranial size may reflect drift or may be adaptive to certain environmental factors. That is also correlates positively with IQ is far from saying that the correlation meanisn anything useful to understanding this debate Slrubenstein | Talk 02:55, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

The meaning of the brain size IQ correlation for the BWEA gap (in brain size and IQ) is certainly controversial. The existence of the correlation and gaps is not. We should be able to maintain this distinction, which I think we have so far. --Rikurzhen 04:28, 2 September 2006 (UTC)