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Race and intelligence

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This is the most well researched and referenced article I've found and seveal experts in the field are active contributors. It is quite neutral and fact-based despite the controversiality of the subject matter, and its strict focus on concrete reporting of the facts despite the "taboo" associated with it embodies what Wikipedia is all about. If ever an article deserved to be featured, it's this one. --Malathion 19:37, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Archived peer review
  • For the interested commentator, consensus scientific statments and surveys on which this article is based: --Rikurzhen 00:09, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
    • "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns" a report from the American Psychological Association [1] -- later published as Neisser et al (1996)
    • "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" [2] -- later published as Gottfredson (1997) -- a statement signed by 52 intelligence researchers meant to outline "conclusions regarded as mainstream among researchers on intelligence".
    • Snyderman, M., & Rothman, S. (1987). "Survey of expert opinion on intelligence and aptitude testing". American Psychologist, 42, 137–144. (some details in this section)
  • Right now, this article may not satisfy the stable criteria because it has recently undergone a transition to Wikipedia:Summary style for the sake of meeting size limits. That said, the prospect is that future edits will be minor, so I support. --Rikurzhen 20:07, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment. While the topic of this article is controversial, the article itself is not controversial in the Wikipedia sense of the word. Despite the disparate personal views of the editors, no NPOV or accuracy dispute exists. Trust that the WP process has taken care of these things. Trust but verify ;) (see above). --Rikurzhen 00:50, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. Non-stable because controversial. That the topic is controversial is not a problem, but the article itself has too much ongoing controversy. Jun-Dai 20:11, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is quite a lot of debate on the talk page, but looking at the edit history, almost all of the edits are from a few editors following the consensus and progressively improving the article. The one revert war that I can find (with User:Zen Master) seems to have been resolved. --Malathion 20:19, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The dispute is by no means resolved, there is still an open request for arbitration. zen master T 14:10, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's my observation that controversy has not actually been a stability issue for this article in the past. Current controversies on the talk page involve fine details (e.g. where the phrase culture-only or environment-only is preferable, or whether a graphic is an appropriate detail for a summary section). The major change to content/structure in the last several months has been the shift to summary style: concern about stability should focus there. --Rikurzhen 20:20, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
    • Still objecting. You can see on the talk page that controversy exists over the article in it present state. That is even more apparent in this thread. Also, a few points that have been percolating in my brain: The article makes vague reference to objections to the notion of race as a valid biological category of humans and to the validity of intelligence quotients, but it gives no serious space to the objections, even though they, as far as I have known, are pretty significant [3] [4] . Most of the article takes for granted that these are valid, even though they are very much in question. The agenda isn't quite as clear and the bias quite as strong as it is in some similar articles (see Intelligence quotient), but this article as it stands is problematic, to say the least. In fact, it's probably the most extreme case I've seen nominated here, though I confess I haven't been around for long. Jun-Dai 23:52, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • You'll want to famaliarize yourself with the consensus scientfic statements I pasted above and the extensive reference list of primary and secondary sources for this article before taking to tertiary web sources. What you're pointing out is a failing of the public media, not this article. The existence of objectors is covered extensively before data and interpretations are discussed. Examine the article and sub-articles for more details. --Rikurzhen 00:06, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
        • <Jun-Dai 01:36, 12 July 2005 (UTC)> The content of the sub-articles does not provide a basis for this article being featured. The fact that objections are somewhat better covered in the sub-articles doesn't make up for the heavy slant of the main article. </Jun-Dai>[reply]
          • Claims that this article is non-neutral or factually incorrect should warrant an NPOV tag and a serious discussion on the talk page. Such claims would have to address the content of the three major references I posted above. But with countless editors over the past years, this article has not degraded to an edit war of POVs, but rather has instead made excellent progress towards all of the criteria of FAs. If you still insist on your point, please give some criticisms with citations instead of merely implying that the many editors of this article are all mistaken. --Rikurzhen 01:48, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
            • <Jun-Dai 02:04, 14 July 2005 (UTC)> I'd agree that the article warrants an NPOV tag, but that's a larger fight than I'm willing (or have the time) to take on right now. Meanwhile, leaving aside issues of bias and characterizations of consensus for the moment (I still object on those terms), I do have one comment: The paragraph on racial distinctions consists of a bunch of disoorganized, mostly extraneous information. The sentences "The national and state governments of the United States employ race in the census, law enforcement, and innumerable other ways. Many minority races have political organizations to represent their interests. Racial discrimination is illegal in many areas of public and private life, including employment" are not directly related to the article, and seem much more like they are trying to pose an argument (in defense of racial distinctions or the validity thereof). The paragraph, within the context of this article, shouldn't really contain any information other than to explain what "racial distinctions" are, which is something it barely touches on, even though it is so central to the background of the topic. If these sentences are important in explaining the history of racial distinctions with regard to the study of race and "intelligence", then, then there should be some explanation as to why they are important, as it is not at all clear in the paragraph itself. What's more, how does one "employ race" in the census, etc.?[reply]
              • That section has been bouncing around for a while. It is intended to bring non-Americans up to speed on the race consciousness that exists in U.S. society. This was specifically requested. Your suggestions for improvement are of course appreciated. Feel free to chip in if you have specific ideas. --Rikurzhen 02:37, July 14, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. The fact that the article requires a self-referential paragraph in the lead section to defend itself shows that it's not ready, and not likely to be so anytime soon. --Michael Snow 20:25, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I assume you mean this: This article conforms with the mainstream opinion among researchers on intelligence, and conclusions presented here are fully described in the major textbooks, professional journals and encyclopedias in intelligence. That was added because many people will find the results presented in the article surprising as the public press has not reported on them, and it was desirable to prepare them for the suprise. That's a feature of the topic, not the article's quality. If there's a problem with this article, that's not it. --Rikurzhen 20:32, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
      • Be that as it may, self-referential writing is terrible and should be avoided at all costs - I cringe whenever I see it. [this article, this paragraph , the views presented here, 'etc, are dead giveaways]. Perhaps some rephrasing is in order. →Raul654 20:37, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
        • Agreed. Are there any tricks for avoiding that kind of langauge? --Rikurzhen 20:40, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
  • Still object, and as I investigate further I get increasingly suspicious that this and related articles suffer from a serious lack of balance in their presentation. In reading the article, one gets the distinct impression that there is a connection between race and intelligence. This is naturally a very controversial position to take, so the article does not say so bluntly, but casts the overall picture as reflecting "mainstream opinion" in the field. The (now-removed) paragraph I noted served to reinforce this impression further.
Malathion asserts that "seveal [sic] experts in the field" are working on this article. Now, perhaps someone with serious expertise could really confirm that this article describes the "mainstream opinion" among those who study this phenomenon. But in looking around, I have found only Rikurzhen making any claim that resembles expertise in this field, in this case "a graduate student in the field of genetics." Reasonably related to the topic, yes, so I'll assume Rikurzhen has more-than-usual familiarity with the subject matter, but not such a high level of expertise that we should show excessive deference.
This is not my field of expertise either, so it is difficult to address issues point-by-point or identify precisely what elements make the article unbalanced overall. However, the article feels like it is pushing an agenda, and while it may be subtle this only makes it more insidious. Having a paragraph like the one cited is a red flag, and makes me think the content needs to be carefully scrutinized.
I will explain a little of how the article achieves such an unbalanced effect, even while making gestures toward neutrality and without blatantly advocating the position it works to promote. From what I can tell, the issue of race and intelligence is part of a larger debate over the heritability of intelligence generally. The content here appears to lean heavily to the theories of Arthur Jensen and J. Philippe Rushton, supporters of the idea that intelligence is heritable. For a critical view, the article relies heavily on Stephen Jay Gould, an exponent of popular science who is not particularly a specialist in this area. It does not acknowledge researchers and experts in the field who dispute Jensen and Rushton's theories; examining the nature of publications in the footnotes confirms this. Perhaps the editors involved are not familiar with the material needed because they have not engaged the scholarship on the other side, I don't know their reasons for the path they have ended up on. But the effect is clearly to balance the "serious science" in support of a connection between race and intelligence, against the "popular science" that denies this connection, and it is easy to guess how the reader is expected to resolve the issue, based on the relative credibility of those cast as the proponents for either side of the debate.
Quickly looking for information on the internet other than Wikipedia, I found a short biography of Jensen (described as a "major proponent of the hereditarian position") listed on an Indiana University website about Human Intelligence. Here, Jensen is effectively contrasted with a contemporary named Leon Kamin (an "active critic of the hereditarian theory of intelligence"). Interestingly, Jensen and Rushton have fairly substantial Wikipedia articles about them, with significant contributions from some of the same editors working on this article. Kamin, on the other hand, has no article at the present time. This may not be malicious, but clearly an article about Kamin is needed at some point, and I also consider it likely that this article needs to incorporate his views. Anyway, such observations strongly suggest to me that Wikipedia's coverage of articles in this field overall suffers from serious systemic bias.
Basically, this is an article about scientific theories that has gone astray and tried to become an article about scientific facts. Report the facts about the competing theories; do not report the theories as if they were fact. A major overhaul is needed here, and I think it would be a serious embarrassment to Wikipedia to call this a featured article in its present state. --Michael Snow 23:23, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
There is no such thing as a scientific fact. There are only theories and the increasing confidence in those theories as they survive experiment and test. I suspect you're uncomfortable with the article because you feel a conflict between your prejudices and the theories the article seems to support. But that's exactly why the article is a good one. --mc6809e
It's not my field either, so I can't comment concretely, but I'd like to know whether the position that intelligence and race are connected is actually controverial among those more "in the know". It's certainly controversial in popular culture, but if the research points us in a different direction, I don't think Wikipedia should shy away from contradicting popular opinion. It may very well be the case that the "serious science" is being accurately reprenented here. Btw, sorry about any typos; I recently switched to the Dvorak keyboard layout. --Malathion 23:44, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe there are any experts in the field of intelligence working on this article, but most of the contributors are PhD scientists/students. If you'd like to famaliarize yourself with the science on which this article is based, at least three top-prority references exist (see above). More recent literature reviews are also available. --Rikurzhen 23:52, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
Michael, I don't think that is a valid objection. You cannot a priori label an article as NPOV because it presents a scientific consensus (for example, the heritability of intelligence, or the correlation between race and measured intelligence). For example, google finds you lots of critics of the points laid out on Evolution, but that doesn't make Evolution POV. Granted, there could be other reasons for Evolution or Race and intelligence being NPOV. But the fact that viewpoints outside the scientific consensus come off as less reliable is not one of those. That being said, I would love it if we were able to replace the viewpoints attributed to Gould and others with more satisfying arguments. Suggestions are welcome (don't think we haven't looked). Arbor 09:08, 12 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conditional support. The online references need to be properly formatted according to MoS guidelines. A simple hyperlinked title is not sufficient: if the article is printed, or the linked source document is moved or erased, the reference becomes useless. Other than that, this is a great article about an interesting subject. Phils 21:16, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't quite understand. You're suggesting the references should be moved from their sub-page to the main page? --Rikurzhen 21:20, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
      • No... I think you're talking about the footnotes. It does look like the footnotes section could use some cleaning up. --Rikurzhen 21:58, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
      • I have been fighting with the footnotes and references for that article for quite some time. I agree that currently they are below par, but it's a huge task, and not much precendent on WP on how this should be handled. I tried to solicit some guidance for this very article at Wikipedia:Footnote3 (which is the style we are trying adopt). But rest assured that everything will be in order real soon now. (The FAC caught us somewhat off-guard, a major refactoring is in progress due to the transition to Wikipedia:Summary style. Excuse the mess.) Arbor 08:53, 12 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. The article presents a unique challenge: consensus statements of expert opinion contradict widely (and in many cases stubbornly) held beliefs. As a case in point, that IQ is substantially heritable is beyond significant technical dispute among experts (both consensus statements reflect this [5] [6]), but outside the field, heritability is very much in dispute (see above comments regarding the general heritability of intelligence [7]). Given these disparate perspectives, the article's point of view on the issue of heritability is, to my mind, a model of NPOV (see this section and the related sub-article). As an editor who was drawn to the subject because of the expert/layperson belief dichotomy, I take pride in the WP community's unique response, which has been, in short, to assemble an article with unusually high verifiability. --DAD T 03:00, 12 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object, the summary section bothers me, it brings up a number of things not coverd in the article and I can't think of any featured artlcies where there is a summary at the end, it is not encyclodedia style. In paricular the final statement about genetic engineering needs to go, since the genetic determinants of intellegence are unknown this is highly unlikey and it is not the purpose of an encyclopedia article to speculate about the future. The other parts of the summary should be moved to their respecitive sections.--nixie 03:53, 12 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Interesting. The summary was a remnant from the time when this article was >150k. As with the suggestion above, I've commented it out for the moment. --Rikurzhen 04:36, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
      • The article also used both inline cites, like Ralpf (1996), and footnotes. The inlines should probably be changed to footnotes for internal consistency.--nixie 06:48, 12 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • There's an editor who's particular keen on fixing up the references. The footnotes are new, so we're still half-way finished. --Rikurzhen 06:56, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
    • I'm one of the editors and I never like the summary either. I say kick it out with all speed. Arbor 08:55, 12 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Agree. For all the reasons nixie listed, and very poor writing to boot, the Summary should be removed. The statement about iodine is novel; the first part of the Summary reads like everyone trying to have the last word, which is ridiculous -- the article should speak for itself. --DAD T 17:26, 12 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Easy ... Done. --Rikurzhen 17:30, July 12, 2005 (UTC)
      • I strongly object to large scale deletion of long standing material. At the very least, much of the material should be moved to other sections as suggested. Ultramarine 17:51, 12 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. Extremely unstable right now. Ultramarine 19:21, 12 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object Totally concur with Michael Snow. Also very biased in favor of the hypothesis that there is a relationship. 172 18:34, 13 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment The evolution and global warming articles are also very biased in favor of the scientific consensus ... unless we decide to fabricate data and include our own opinions, that's not something we get to change; see the consensus statements linked above. --Rikurzhen 18:50, July 13, 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment. the hypothesis that there is a relationship is scientific consensus (see the helpful material linked on the top of this page for support for that statement). I don't understand the sentiment underlying your comment, unless it's a knee-jerk reaction (for which I have strong sympathies)—in that case I urge you to read up on the material and reconsider your objection. Arbor 19:33, 13 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • <Jun-Dai 02:04, 14 July 2005 (UTC)> That may be true, to a limited extent--but the very concept of race as a biological categorization of humans, or that intelligence can be measured in any particularly meaningful manner is not consensus, and while this is made clear in a few of the external links, it is by no means clear in the text of the article, which seems to imply some sort of consensus on these matters. </Jun-Dai>[reply]
        • The article does not imply consensus, it reports it. As editors, that's all we can do. Because the scientific consensus statements listed above directly contradict your statements, I'm guessing you're referring to the popular consensus. Just as Evolution and Global warming do not dwell on the popular consensus, the present article does not. --DAD T 02:27, 14 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • While there is a great deal of public discussion of whether race is a vaid biological category, social and medical scientists still go around using race in their research; thus our hands are tied. We must report on what the IQ research says, without introducing personal bias. Although we do report examples of these kinds of critcisms (including Sternberg et al, 2005), we can't act on that POV by not report on anything else. Stepping out of the WP NPOV/NOR shell for a second: the theoretical considerations of some population biologists wrt race do not seem to have penetrated into other fields, where concepts of race as still grounded in "common sense" and "self-reported race". --Rikurzhen 02:34, July 14, 2005 (UTC)
  • Absurdly strong support, if I (as a fledgling editor of the article in question) am allowed to comment. I "found" this page at the time of its VdD six weeks ago (or so), and have since tried to help. This is potentially the best Wikipedia article I have ever seen, and a shining example of (1) our "secret sauce": NPOV, and (2) the fact that collaborative editing can produce amazingly informative, correct, well-written, and relevant material ('Wiki works", and not only about Pokémon), and (2a) even if the material is controversial. I would also like it to be a shining example of (3) references and verifiability, by pet peeve about WP. It already far outclasses most other WP articles in that respect, but there is some cleanup left to do. After the article went to Peer Review, we started a major reorganisation based on Wikipedia: Summary style which has kept us entertained during the past few weeks, so the current article is in a state of flux. I would suggest we wait until it stabilises again. Arbor 19:33, 13 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object POV pushing propaganda which states what is not true: that there is a scientific consensus supporting the concept. The "research" presented is largely junk science, and vociferous objections from the scientific community are not cited. Stirling Newberry 23:17, 14 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. "The concept" has no clear antecedent. Any meaningful response and/or edit requires knowing what you mean. Kindly explain. Also, vociferous objections are cited in multiple places, from accusations of racism and biased results (including comparison of one scientist's goals to Hitler's) to more moderated objections that neither race nor intelligence have any scientific basis and that any attempt to study them is not science and/or is ethically wrong. All appear to be carefully cited. Kindly elaborate on what objections are not covered. --DAD T 00:05, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Race and intelligence is an area of intelligence research studying the nature, origins, and practical consequences of group differences in intelligence. Members of any racial-ethnic group may be found at any IQ level, but averages among groups often differ in where their members tend to cluster along the IQ scale. Similar clustering is seen amoung racial-ethnic groups in related variables, such as school achievement or reaction time. In the U.S., most variation in IQ occurs within individual familes, not between races. However, differences of average IQs among groups has been pronounced enough to merit a scientific investigation.

This is the intro-paragraph, and it is a mendacious misstatement of current knowledge, POV propaganda and crypto-racism. Stirling Newberry 01:25, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ad hominems aside, do you think the differences of average IQs among groups has not been pronounced enough to merit a scientific investigation? – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 02:07, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
    • I'm sure we are all well-aware of the first paragraph. I note your (SN's) post does not answer either of my questions, which were asked with the genuine hope of engaging your concerns. The accusations you level are quite serious (and surprising) since the first paragraph reflects several published consensus statements, as has been repeatedly noted on this page. I'm sure other observers would find it helpful to know what base of support you are drawing upon. Best, --DAD T 02:21, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Quadell: The scientific investigation has been going on for decades. Perhaps a better question is, "What published statements -- preferably indicating broad consensus -- contradict anything in the first paragraph?" --DAD T 02:21, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
This is POV pushing on its face. [8] is an example of the kind of debunking that Rushton et al regularly get. The article is crypto-racist right wing pseudo-science. Stirling Newberry 02:28, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
as far as I can tell, Richard Nisbett, the author you cite, would agree with the intro paragraph and would endorse the article, if not all the POVs therein. --Rikurzhen 02:30, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
That very Nisbett article is listed right on the Race and intelligence page, and nothing in Nisbett's article contradicts anything in the first paragraph. Nisbett is concerned with whether the gap is closing, and his viewpoint is prominently featured in the article. He also is concerned with evidence for heredity, and the malleability of IQ, points of view which receive extensive treatment and which the article favors no particular position. Nisbett's accusations against Rushton and Jensen are quite mild compared to the vitriol that the R&I article aims at them. You have just provided outstanding evidence of the article's NPOV. --DAD T 02:44, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. This article seems to have several objections based on the fact that it's a controversial topic, but I think controversial topics should be able to be featured articles. It gives a lot of interesting information, it's well-organized and well-illustrated, it's meticulously referenced, and it describes all veiwpoints about as fully as could be expected. There is of course room for improvement - but I wish every article on Wikipedia were as NPOV as this one! The authors have had to work extremely hard making the article NPOV, since it's such a sensitive topic, and the effort has paid off. There will be some people who will object to any article that contains information they don't like, and that's disappointing, but I don't see how any article could explain the current state of knowledge and debate much more fairly. – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 02:07, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. There is no scientific nor even pseudo-scientific consensus to describe the issue only in terms of "race" and "intelligence". The supporters of the article would love to get the controversy bogged down analyzing their sources using their one sided method of framing the issue, they completely ignore all criticisms against how the issue is framed and the historic evidence against the subject (see scientific racism). I theorize that most/all of the pro editors of race and intelligence must be ultra racist or insanely politically motivated themselves because nothing else comes close to explaining their support for the unscientific one sided presentation of the subject which subtly presumptively induces racism in others -- not to mention the repeated obfuscation, repetition of language confusion, and misdirection on talk pages. If the issue is described and framed only in terms of "race" and "intelligence" the brain will only think about the issue in terms of "race" in search of causes which will make it easier for the supporters of the article (aka the psychology of language propaganda experts) to later on intentionally confuse description of the issue with cause for the issue. zen master T 03:40, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I guess it goes without saying that ZM has a unique view on this subject, which we've been unable to corroborate with citations, and thus is not found in the article. Lengthy discussions to that effect can be found in the article's talk pages. And yes... we all just love being called ultra-racist obfuscating propagandists ;) --Rikurzhen 04:17, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • Object. This article is a shining testament to Wikipedia's abiding flaw. This (and a disturbingly large collection of support articles) are all strongly POV. Carefully done, well written and researched, but heavily biased. Some of the reasons this article is "stable" have to do with the obvious enthusiasm and eloquence of its major contributers. I see the comment by Jun-Dai that this is a "larger fight than I'm willing (or have the time) to take on right now" and suspect many others have felt the same. I know I have. We need a William M. Connolley analog to balance this out. brenneman(t)(c) 04:46, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • William M. Connolley wouldn't be needed if people respected the IPCC consensus statements as representative of expert opinion on climate change. Likewise, if people would respect the APA and WSJ consensus statements and the Snyderman & Rothman survey data, then we would all be much better off. --Rikurzhen 05:41, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • Support. The general US population, including even Stanford professors, NYT science reporters and MDs (who write papers on which medications suit which people, etc.) call certain loose categories or subsets of the US population "races". (I think it is an objectionable practice on many grounds, but they could care less what I think about it. I know. I've written to some of them. Guess what the response was.) The US education system is strongly, if not completely, tied to selecting individuals for college entrance and other valued positions in society on the grounds of I.Q. tests -- tests whose names suggest that they measure something called "intelligence." I am troubled because I see no clear definition of "inte lligence" other than the tests that supposedly measure it. Perhaps I am simply uninformed at some deep and hidden level and can be reformed. Be that as it may, the results of parceling the US population into groups that roughly reflect genetic herit age, and that also roughly reflect the social ills and/or the social perks that the society doles out to people, and then using the testing instruments that purportedly measure "intelligence", turn out to raise some very important warning flags that need to be understood and heeded by the electorate.
When college administrators use testing instruments as part of their admissions procedures, they are (or ought to be) interested in determining whether an individual will have an adequate foundation to efficiently utilize the college environment. Tests can be constructed that determine whether that foundation exists. People desiring to take other paths in life will likely undergo similar evaluations before significant resources are devoted to trying t o train them.
The results obtained when the averages for scores on these tests are computed for the so-called "racial" groups indicate something of profound importance for makers of public policy: The several groups are not equally well prepared to do well in endeavors that require the aptitudes measured by the tests. Green people do great, and pink people do poorly. It does not follow logically that pink people do not do well because they are pink. It does not follow ethically that because some people are pink the institutions of society should not be allowed to function for their full benefit. It does not follow from any principle of economic utility known to me that one sector of a population should be disadvantaged either through design or th rough neglect and therefore be unable to make its optimum contribution to the society as a whole.
The terms used to discuss and debate this question are ill-suited to rational discussion. In fact, they are very heavily loaded with emotional baggage. Thos e factors, in turn, distract most people from the true issues and result in emotionally volatile confrontations. The fact remains, however, that rational planning intended for the public good cannot afford to ignore the clear signs that something is not going well.
I fully share the negative reactions that I suspect are behind many objections to this article. I flinch at the very mention of the word "race". I question the intelligence of people who appear to have a circular definition of intelligence. I would like it much better if we had single clear words tied firmly to adequate operational definitions instead of a situation in which there are probably as many definitions of "race" as there are people who use the word. But such words and their defini tions enter a language by a slow process of adaptation, failure, and reformulation. We are not there yet, and we will not get there without facing the issues and working through them.
My own background is in physics, in philosophy, and a bunch of other t hings that have even less direct bearing on this issue. So I am clearly aware that I would be out of my depth if I tried to assure other people of the formal correctness and the experimental adequacy of the conclusions reported in the "Race and Intelligence" article. On the other hand, I have from time to time raised rather incoherent objections or fears pertaining to things that I have flagged for myself as questionable and have later found the article to have been amended to resolve the problems I have noted. I have also never picked up on the slightest hint of evasiveness or manipulative behavior on the part of the major participants engaged in improving this article.
Give us a better term than "race" if you can. Give us a substitute for "intelligen ce" that makes it transparently clear that we are measuring capabilities and inferring from them some kind of underlying capacity without, perhaps, really needing to do so. But examine the article with an eye to determining whether it tells people what the fight is about, why there is a fight, what the payoff is if we can determine what disadvantages some groups and how to prevent that from happening. P0M 07:04, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fantastic article One of Wikipedia's very best. Being made even better due to this exchange of views. For those who find the article one sided; What do you think intelligence is? What physically executes those information processes? What at conception is the blueprint for the hardware (wetware) those processes run on? What is passsed from parents to children? Parents's parents's paremts... that's ancestory right? ancestory is another way of saying race right? Chimps are different from humans due to genes. Oranges are different from tangerines due to genes even tho they can interbreed. What farmer uses environment to change an orange tree to a tangerine tree? Who wants a world with less diversity in their fruit? Humans have many qualities we can be proud of, only a few of which are measured by IQ tests. IQ tests do not measure who is the superior human. But rejecting evidence and logic because you don't like the conclusion isn't being even a bit superior. 4.250.33.21 08:36, 15 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. The article should be moved to Research on race and intelligence or should be expanded to discuss popular beliefs and arguments on the issue from outside the scientific community. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:50, 2005 July 16 (UTC)
    • Comment. I think the root of that suggestion is very good. (For example, both global warming and global warming controversy exist.) But I think in practice it would be better to expand the current History section of this article into Race and intelligence (History), and use that article to detail the ideas/writings/etc inside and outside the field and up to the present, which would include popular beliefs, criticisms, etc. I've been not-so-subtly trying to tempt people to work on this idea. --Rikurzhen 05:25, July 16, 2005 (UTC)
      • I'm glad to see you're receptive, but I'm not sure why current popular viewpoints would be filed under History. Really, I just think the article should make clearer that the belief that race and intelligence are not connected is widespread and give some suggestions for why that is (especially when 200 years ago it almost certainly was not so widespread). Is there any polling data available on this issue? Christopher Parham (talk) 05:49, 2005 July 16 (UTC)
        • I have seen polling data on experts and heard of polling data on public intellectuals like newspaper editors, but nothing on the general public. The idea that history is a good context to explain current popular views is just a suggestion, but it makes sense to me in the context of Gould's The Mismeasure of Man and the fact that the present is a product of history. (Not that we need to debate that point on the FAC page.) --Rikurzhen 05:55, July 16, 2005 (UTC)
        • These comments are being discussed on the Talk:Race and intelligence page here and here.
  • Object The graph in the leading section of the article makes a bold statement suggesting that race is strongly correlated with intelligence. This would have been fine if the graph was well supported by research, but the graph makes a questionable interpretation of a study of 1,880 adults in Journal of School Psychology. The distributions IQ scores of non-white adults is of course what makes the graph controversial and looking at the study it is clear that African-Americans constituted 10.21% of the sample, while Asians and Hispanics groups PUT TOGETHER constituted less than 1.3% of the sample! If the active contributors to the article are experts in the field, I suggest that they update the graph based on research specifically carried out to study the correlation of IQ scores and race
    • Except the graph is based on data taken from that study and others. For example, Roth et al 2001 did a meta-analysis with over 6 million test subjects. See the full footenote. The White and Black averages are verified by the concensus statements (listed at the top of this page) and while the numbers for Asians and Hispanics are less precisely known, the given values are representative of the set of published figures. This would be better discussed on the talk page. --Rikurzhen 23:02, July 16, 2005 (UTC)
      • I did see the other studies mentioned in the footnote, however given a bold statement made by the graph, I will not remove my objection until more detail is given on the other studies. Please provide the titles of the articles and the journals where the articles were published for the following references used to substantiate the footnote: Roth et al., 2001; Rushton, 1995; Herrnstein & Murray, 1994

129.34.20.23 18:05, 17 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

How much time do people have to weigh in on a piece before a determination is reached? I've been spending a great deal of time on the (unexpected) FAS process for Blackface and just happened to see the FAS for this article, which I've never seen before. Unfortunately, I have a bunch of deadlines of my own to tend to. That means likely no time to read this until mid week. Will there be time left for me to still be able to weigh in? deeceevoice 11:51, 17 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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