Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2009-11-12/Race and Intelligence/Archive 0

Opening Statements

Rules and Content of Statements

1. Your statement will only be accepted if you soon thereafter add your acceptance of the groundrules posted above.

2. Your statement should address 1) the construction of the dispute in your opinion, 2) the nature of the dispute as it has progressed, 3) the outcome you originally seek coming into this mediation [your opinion], 4) Wikipedia Policies that come into play in your opinion, 5) proposed ways to resolve the issue or points of mutual agreement that could begin an objective process to a resolution

3. Follow groundrules in not attacking other participants and acting in Good Faith

4. Seperate your statement by a ===

Cheers! Reubzz (talk) 20:41, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Slrubenstein's Statement

The fact that there has been an ongoing dispute for over three years, with a changing cast of characters, proves one thing: this is not a "personal behavior" problem involving a breakdown of communication or trolling. I point this out because I know this is how most disputes at WP are viewed by the community, and most of our conflict resolution mechanisms are meant to resolve these kinds of disputes. I obviously have no clue about how to resolve this dispute, I tried at least twice (in 2006 and in 2008) to mediate conflicts between especially active editors and achieved nothing. All I know is, the root of this problem is not really a conflict between specific individual editors, that is just the form it takes. At stake here is not resolving a specific dispute among names parties; at stake is creating a relatively stable article that is organized in a way to sustain fruitful edits and not - as has always happened in the past - fall back into dissention. This is in my view the desired outcome: a stable article future editors can contribute to without getting mired in the same debates that have overwhelmed it almost since its inception

I think there are two key issues here. The first is the charge of racist science. No one is questioning that one component accounting for human intelligence is genetic - genes account of an amount of variance among members of the same group (which could conceivably be humanity as a whole). There is some debate over what the percentage is, but this debate is not controvercial because race is not an issue. The problem is when someone says that half of the diference in IQ between Blacks and Whites is genetic is tantamount to saying, Blacks are inherently inferior. There is a documented history of beliefs like this being used in social policy and in politics to discriminate against Blacks, for example, denying them the right to vote at certain times in certain places. The reason that many scientists now view this as "racist science" is because it is now clear that the methods used to establish the claim that Blacks are inherently inferior were deeply flawed if not fraudulent. This is a simple matter of history and the article on race and intelligence needs to include it - so far I do not think I have said anything controversial.

The controvery begins when we discuss whether Jensen Rushton, and Murray and Hernstein be included in the section on racist science. I repeat that this charge rests on two thigs, first on the fact that the claim that Blacks are inherently inferior to Whites is racist, and second, that the claim is based on bad science. There is no doubt that many scholars have accused them of racist science, but other scientists have defended them. The charge of "bad science" rests heavily on the fact that Rushton and others have at times misused the concept (which comes from a different academic discipline) of "heritability." I think this is a controversy the article needs to cover in a dispassionate way: some accuse them of racist science, some have defended them. I think editors have found it difficult to come to a consensus way to cover this debate in the article.

The second is the question of majority, minority, or fringe view and here I think people editing the page need real guidance as to Wikipedia's criteria for "fringe." The problem is that these words (majority versus fringe) are essentially relative. We are obviously not talking about "popular views" - most Americans or Canadians may believe Blacks are inherently inferior, or may believe Blacks and Whites are inherently equal, and these facts might be relevant to a section on "popular beliefs." When we talk about fringe science versus majority or mainstream science, obviously we mean among a group of scientists. And one place where we need help is in determining which group. We could say, "among the group of scientists research race, heredity and IQ." The problem is, this really is the group that is accused of being fringe. We do not want to end up with a tautology "All researchers who agree with Rushton agree with Rushton" - that does not help us sort out this mainstream versus ringe problem. Of course all researchers who believe Blacks are inherently inferior to Whites, at least to some degree, are going to agreee with one another. This is what is at issue with the Wall Street Journal advertisement. This was a statement of 50+ scientists posted as a paid editorial in The Wall Street Journal attesting that Blacks are - to some degree - intellectually inferior to Whites. One major dispute is: do the signatories of this ad prove that this view is "majority" or "mainstream?" Or, is this the very question: are the signatories to this ad fringe or mainstream? Some editors seem to think that the signatories to the ad represent all or most experts on the question, therefore the ad necessarily represents the mainstream view. Other editors believe this group is fringe (which is one reason why they had to express their views through a paid ad, or by citing one another, or by publishing in journals supported by the Pioneer fund or edited by one another).

Those who consider the ad to be a fringe view, and the signatories to be espousers of a fringe view, have to demonstrate that (1) there are other scientists who have expertise on the topic and (2) they hold other views. Many of the signatories ar psychologists, and some people have forwarded the APA statement. This is an official statement of the American Psychological Association, but those who consider the WSJ ad to be mainstream claim that this statemnt represents the views only of those who wrote it (which is fewer than 50) which makes the statement fringe. We are having a similar debate over the AAA (American Anthropological Association; anthropology is the principal discipline that studies "race") and AAPA (American Association of Physical Anthropologists; this is a field of anthropology that specializes on human genetic variation) statements - do the officials of these organizations represent their disciplines, or only themselves?

Finally, Rushton and Jensen are psychologists. Psychology is not the academic discipline that specializes in the study of heredity. Two academic disciplines are relevant: Physical Anthropologists who study population genetics are principal experts on human hereditary. Evolutionary Biologists are also experts on heredity. Have any of these scientists established the degree to which intellectual diferences between Blacks and Whites is genetic? Some editors argue that these views are essential to deciding if Rushton and the WSJ ad is fringe or mainstream.

To be clear: Rather than taking an a priori position that there are "two sides" to this issue (e.g. hereditarian vs. non-hereditarian), we should begin by looking at multiple approaches to the question - biology, cultural anthropology, physical anthropology, psychology, sociology, etc. and find out how they view the question, how many significant views are there and how they understand the differences among these views. It is my sense that some scientists see this as a debate with two sides. I am not sure all scientists view it this way.

I think these are the core issues that need mediation.

From one perspective, these disputes should be resolvable based on strict adherance to WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. However, when it comes to identifying wha is a fringe view, you need to know what fields of science are involved in the claim that "Blacks are to some degree inherently inferior to Whites, intellectually." Rushton and Jensen are psychologists, but anthropologists and sociologists who study race, and biologists and anthropologists who study human genetics, also claim expertise. I think having a clear sense of which academic discipline has how much expertise over what is also essential. This question is at the heart of the dispute, and in my experience no mediation can be successful unless it can find criteria all parties agree are objective and neutral for answering this question.

David.Kane's Statement

The dispute centers on how much space in the article should be devoted to the "genetic hypothesis," i.e., the belief that a non-zero portion of the observed racial difference in IQ is due to genetic differences. Some of the editors view this as "fringe" hypothesis, suggesting via WP:FRINGE that very little if any space should be devoted to it in this article. The other editors view it as a "minority" hypothesis, arguing that the numerous articles in the peer-reviewed literature which support it make it more than "fringe" and that, therefore, via WP:UNDUE a discussion of the "genetic hypothesis" belongs in the article.

The outcomes I seek are a) A ruling about whether or not the "genetic hypothesis" meets the definition of WP:FRINGE and b) A suggestion about the percentage (5%, 30%, 50%, whatever) of the article that should be devoted to the "genetic hypothesis." I recommend that the mediator conclude that the "genetic hypothesis" does not meet the standards of WP:FRINGE and that, therefore, a significant percentage (25%) of the article should be devoted to explaining it via references to the peer-reviewed literature. I do not think that the editors of this article would fight over content. We agree (I hope!) about what Jensen, Rushton, Lynn, Gottfredson, Hernstein, Murray et al believe. We just disagree about how much weight these views should be given in the article. I thank all the editors for participating in this moderation. I apologize if I have mischaracterized the dispute. David.Kane (talk) 21:20, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Varoon Arya's Opening Statement

§1. Description of the dispute: Fundamentally, this dispute revolves around whether or not the so-called "hereditarian" view, which claims that the differences between the IQ scores of Whites and Blacks is due, in some part, to genetics, deserves adequate representation in the article Race and intelligence. Another way this has been put is: Is the hereditarian position "fringe" science, or is it a minority view? This is important, for it determines how much coverage the hereditarian position should receive in the article.

§2. Progession of the dispute: Several editors raised the point that the hereditarian position was inadequately represented in the article. Other editors countered by claiming that the hereditarian position was adequately represented. In the view of some, most of the coverage of the hereditarian position in the article is in the form of criticism, and there is very little which attempts to explain the hereditarian position itself. Others respond to this claim by arguing that the hereditarian position is "fringe", and thus only deserves to be criticized. They further argue that to explain the hereditarian position would be a violation of WP:UNDUE.

§3. Outcome sought: I believe that the hereditarian position falls safely within the definition of a "minority" view. As such, I would like to see the hereditarian position receive adequate representation. By "adequate", I mean a presentation which allows the reader to understand why the proponents of the hereditarian position support that position. This goes above and beyond any question of the proportion of said representation. I am interested in neither the public popularity of these views nor in haggling over the percentage of coverage they receive. My primary interest resides in seeing that both sides of the academic dispute are presented in a coherent and understandable fashion. What comes after that is, in my opinion, the result of a popularity contest, and I do not plan to participate past the point of seeing that both sides are fairly and coherently represented.

§4. Wikipedia Policies: WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE, WP:NOR/WP:SYNTH, WP:ASG (which I personally extend to experts as well as to editors), WP:MNA, WP:RS.

§5. Proposal: I think that we could begin the process of resolution if all the involved editors could agree on several key points:

• There is a real academic dispute concerning the contributing factors to the observed difference in IQ scores between Whites and Blacks.
• This academic dispute is maintained by qualified scholars who advance conflicting research results and/or theories.
• The research findings and/or theories advanced by the involved scholars appear in respected academic journals and other reliable sources.
• The proportion of scholars who currently favor one position over the other cannot be objectively determined.
• The public statements issued either by groups of scholars or by bodies such as the APA are important for orientation, but do not make any final proclamations regarding the outcome of the academic dispute.
• Both sides in the academic dispute advance claims serious enough in import to require an adequate presentation of the reasoning behind their claims, as well as qualified criticism which has been leveled against those claims.
• The social implications of this issue, though very important, should not be allowed to preclude the discussion of any part of the academic dispute.
• The work of experts on both sides of the dispute should be taken in good faith and discussed on its own merits. --Aryaman (talk) 22:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Opening statement by Mathsci

I by and large agree with Slrubenstein's statement, particularly that the focus of the article should become stable and that the article talk page should not become a forum for open-ended debate. The article at present does not cover all of the recent major academic contributions to this debate and should make every attempt to do so in an even-handed way. The hereditarian point of view should be carefully outlined, but without giving a false impression of its degree of acceptance. As Slr has written the "open letter" in the WSJ by a self-selected and like-minded group of academics should not receive WP:UNDUE weight, if other distinguished academics have expressed disagreement (as is the case). At present there has not been a systematic attempt to ensure that the broad spectrum of mainstream academic opinion has been properly represented. One problem is that the very narrow topic of a possible correlation between race, whatever that means, and intelligence, whatever that means, has not been widely studied in academia. This makes it hard to write an article on it for an encyclopedia, since many aspects will remain inconclusive because they either have not been sufficiently studied or have not been deemed worthy to be studied. Scrupulous attention should be paid to not ignoring or dismissing important sources, particularly those by eminent academics. Perhaps the most important point is that all key sources should first be carefully identified. These should be carefully summarised in the article, without prejudice. If only a handful of academics favour a particular viewpoint, i.e. it is a minoritarian viewpoint, that should be made clear. There does not seem to be any evidence that "Race and Intelligence" is a major topic of research, discussion or debate in the majority of academic departments specializing in psychometrics or related disciplines. We should be extremely cautious not to approach the writing of this article with that viewpoint. Mathsci (talk) 23:26, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Ramdrake's opening statement

The debate over "race and intelligence" stems from the incontrovertible observation that self-defined "Blacks" score lower on average than self-defined "Whites" on many standard performance and/or aptitude tests. Many interpretations have been made of this puzzling observation.

• Some people have questioned whether "IQ tests" really measure intelligence, and if so how fairly does it do so across cultures. Existing consensus is that these measurements are good predictors of life outcomes (across cultures?), and that they are not subject to any simple form of bias, although certain complex forms of bias (such as stereotype threat) have been suggested.
• Some people have dismissed the question by arguing that race as it is commonly conceived is a social construct and that comparing IQ test results (a psychometric/biological measurement) across social categories is like comparing apples and oranges.
• Some people have acknowledged that the IQ gap does measure something (an achievement gap), but there are two main explanations as to the source of the IQ gap:
  • Some believe it is the result of environmental causes, such as those behind the Flynn effect which has seen a worldwide rise in IQ test scores of about 15 point over the last half-century or so. Factors such as nutrition, schooling and hygiene have been suggested, but no one factor has been definitely demonstrated to be the driving cause between the gap.
  • Others believe that in addition to possible environmental causes, genetic factors cause a difference in scoring ability between Blacks and Whites (and most ethnic groups for that matter). The evidence behind this claim is entirely indirect at this point, as (among other things) no genes have been found that regulate intelligence in humans. Also, different proponents of this position advance different proportions for the genetic/environmental effect ratio.

I believe that it is possible, using available literature, to demonstrate that this last position (often dubbed the "hereditarian position") is in fact the purview of a minority of very vocal scientists, and that mainstream opinion can safely be attributed to the "environmental position".

However, help is needed in arriving at a consensus on determining exactly how strong this vocal minority holding the hereditarian position is, and what would be due weight in presenting their position within the article. My concern is the distinct possibilty that in trying to properly explain the minority hereditarian position, undue weight may be given to it space-wise within the article. But, as I said, I'm aiming for fair and due representation of this position, after we've arrived at a consensus on exactly how to qualify this minority position (fringe, small minority, significant minority, full-blown alternative explanation?)--Ramdrake (talk) 23:27, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Some review papers that could help in this discussion:

• APA statement report on Race and Intelligence:[1]
• AAA statement on Race and Intelligence: [2]
• AAA statement on Race: [3]
• AAPA statement on Race: [4]
• Review of Rushton's hereditarian hypothesis by Leonard Lieberman, eminent anthropologist:[5]
• Race and Intelligence research from the viewpoint of neurology (a review): [6]
• Another criticism of Rushton's hypotheses from a fellow psychologist (Zack Cernovsky): [7]
• Review from the field of philosophy of science criticizing the science funded by the Pioneer Fund: [8]

Hope it helps.--Ramdrake (talk) 23:07, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Muntuwandi's opening statement

I agree with statments of Slrubenstein and Ramdrake. Talk:Race and intelligence has 74 archives, which means the material related to the current dispute has been debated several times in the past. The main controversy is how much weight should be given to the hereditarian viewpoint. The hereditarian position is indeed supported by a group of like minded scientists who for the most part are connected to the Pioneer Fund. There are not many, if any, mainstream publications that support the hereditarian position that are not in some way associated with pioneer fund publications. The hereditarian position therefore qualifies as a minority position. According to WP:UNDUE

"Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Now an important qualification: In general, articles should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more widely held views"

Wapondaponda (talk) 00:48, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

DJ's statement

1) the construction of the dispute in your opinion

There are three points of serious (scholarly) dispute on this topic which raise policy issues for editors:

1. "whether or not races exist"[1]
2. "whether it is either important or proper to study racial... differences in intelligence"[1]
3. "the conclusions that have been drawn about environmental and genetic causes as determinants of these differences"[1]

The third issue has caused the most difficulty recently. The issue is whether the "hereditarian" or "genetic" hypothesis is a fringe view.

2) the nature of the dispute as it has progressed

1. "whether or not races exist" --> So far, this has been handled by WP:MNA and pointing to other articles.
2. "whether it is either important or proper to study racial... differences in intelligence" --> So far, this is included in this article by describing the disagreement and moving on to other topics. In describing those topic, we applied WP:MNA in assuming it is important and ethical. Else, it would be impossible to describe other views.
3. "the conclusions that have been drawn about environmental and genetic causes as determinants of these differences" --> David.Kane and Varoon Arya have covered this (above).

3) the outcome you originally seek coming into this mediation [your opinion]

In my opinion, it's incorrect to treat the "hereditarian" or "genetic" hypothesis as a fringe view. We have no way of knowing how many people actually ascribe to that view affirmatively (the survey from the 1980s not withstanding), but a great many scholars who hold a variety of views on the question nonetheless treat it seriously as a matter for empirical debate. We should do the same. For example, I see no reason that the views in [2-4] shouldn't be prominently summarized.

Secondarily, I do not see any way to account for how many hold which views. Most apex sources arrive at the conclusion that: "past research on both racial and gender differences in intelligence has been marked by methodological errors and overgeneralizations by researchers on all sides of the issue"[1] and that no one knows what causes the differences[5]. They explicitly do not conclude that environmental causes are known to be the explanation and that genetic causes are known not to contribute.

4) Wikipedia Policies that come into play in your opinion

WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE are the central point of content dispute.

WP:MNA, WP:RS, WP:NOR are important:

The debate was characterized by strong assertions as well as by strong feelings. Unfortunately, those assertions often revealed serious misunderstandings of what has (and has not) been demonstrated by scientific research in this field. Although a great deal is now known, the issues remain complex and in many cases still unresolved.[5]

WP:NPOV, WP:SYNTH and WP:ASG:

Another unfortunate aspect of the debate was that many participants made little effort to distinguish scientific issues from political ones. Research findings were often assessed not so much on their merits or their scientific standing as on their supposed political implications. In such a climate, individuals who wish to make their own judgments find it hard to know what to believe.[5]

5) proposed ways to resolve the issue or points of mutual agreement that could begin an objective process to a resolution

In addition to the proposals by Varoon Arya, I would add:

• Recognize that simply counting the number of people who affirmatively hold the "hereditarian" hypothesis to be definitely true does not capture the importance of the various arguments that are offered in favor that hypothesis and against its alternatives.
• Treat the arguments made by pro-hereditarian scholars with the same care that James Flynn does when summarizing them (Flynn does not hold the hereditarian hypothesis to be true, but values the contributions of its supporters to the topic.)
• Recognize that disagreements exist about the interpretation of the data outside of the hereditarian/environmentalist dichotomy. For example, evidence against an environmental cause isn't inappropriate merely because it may be seen as in effect pro-hereditarian. (In other words, there is a real diversity of views.)
• We are not obliged to make the hereditarian view look unreasonable or unethical. That should not be a metric of acceptability. Many distinguished scholars (most IQ experts?) believe that the hereditarian view is ethical and empirically possible (albeit unproven).

references:

[1] http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2007.00037.x [2] Mainstream Science on Intelligence [3] Jensen (1998) [4] Rushton and Jensen (2005) [5] APA's 1996 report

--DJ (talk) 00:33, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Captain Occam's opening statement

For a Wikipedia article on any topic about which there is a scientific controversy, one of the most important characteristics the article needs to have is that a person can come to it with little or no knowledge of the topic, and come away from it having a general understanding of the controversy that exists about it, along with the viewpoints and arguments expressed by both sides. There are several policies that relate to this principle, but WP:NPOV is probably the most important. In accordance with NPOV policy, all significant points of view which have been published by reliable sources should be included in the article, in rough proportion to their prominence in the source material.

I don’t think it’s difficult to demonstrate that a legitimate scientific controversy exists about race and intelligence. Two collective statements about this which have been discussed here so far are Mainstream Science on Intelligence and Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns. The first of these was originally published in The Wall Street Journal with the signatures of 52 experts in the relevant fields, and later republished in the peer-reviewed journal Intelligence. Since it has passed peer review for this professional journal, which is the same criterion used to judge accuracy for everything else published in it, the fact that this article began as a newspaper editorial should not be important, although I agree that it cannot be assumed to represent more than the viewpoints of the 52 experts who signed it. Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns is a report written by an 11-member task force appointed by the American Psychological Association. Both of these reports state that the cause of the 15-point gap between the average IQ of Black and White people in the United States remains an open question, and the “Mainstream Science” statement presents the hereditarian hypothesis (that genetics contribute to it) and the environmental hypothesis (that it’s caused exclusively by environmental factors) on approximately equal terms. The APA statement is slightly more critical of the hereditarian hypothesis than of the view that it is caused only by environmental factors, but also emphasizes that neither viewpoint can be known with certainty to be correct or incorrect.

Another source of information about the views of scientists on this topic is the Snydernan and Rothman study, a study from 1988 which examined the views of intelligence researchers about the cause of the IQ difference, and found that a majority of them held the opinion that both genetics and environment contributed to it. (Although the proportion would have no doubt been lower if the study had also included anthropologists and geneticists.) A few editors have claimed that the results of this study are inaccurate due to problems such as sampling bias, but because these criticisms have not appeared in any reliable sources, they need to be considered original research; I think most of the people involved in this article agree on this point. And lastly, the most recent examination of the conflicting views on this issue is the June 2005 issue of the peer-reviewed APA journal Psychology, Public Policy and Law, which was devoted to this controversy. For this issue of their journal, the APA chose to publish a collection of six different papers representing the various viewpoints on this topic. The issue’s featured paper, Thirty years of research on race differences in cognitive ability, is a detailed argument for the hereditarian position by Jensen and Rushton. In addition to the featured paper, the APA chose to publish two other papers that take a pro-hereditarian stance in this issue, as well as two which favor the environmental position, and one which takes an intermediate viewpoint, arguing for an interaction between biological and environmental factors. The last of these, by Suzuki & Aronson, ascribes less importance to heredity than is done by Rushton and Jensen, but more than is done most of their critics. The respective weight that the APA gave to each of the viewpoints expressed in this issue demonstrates the way that they decided these viewpoints should be balanced against one another in a neutral publication.

As far as I know, these are the only sources which have attempted to neutrally present the nature of the dispute itself. Although numerous sources exist which describe the hereditarian viewpoint as “fringe”, or which describe the environmental view as being guilty of the moralistic fallacy, all of these are sources which themselves are explicitly arguing for one viewpoint or the other. Since this issue is presented as a legitimate scientific controversy by all of the sources which are not attempting to prove or disprove one viewpoint about it, I believe that NPOV policy requires Wikipedia’s article to present this topic in a similar manner.

In my opinion, some of the earlier versions of the article did a fairly good job with this. Several times I’ve mentioned the version from December of 2006 as accurately presenting both sides of the controversy, as well as including several pieces of relevant information which are missing from the current article, such as the social and practical significance of the IQ difference, which is important regardless of whether or not genetic factors contribute to this difference. (Not to say that this version of the article is perfect, of course.) However, over the past three years, more and more information about the hereditarian perspective has gradually been removed from the article, until at this point it presents virtually no information about the hereditarian perspective except to criticize it, and most of the arguments used in favor of this viewpoint are not mentioned anywhere. For an article on a topic about which a significant scientific controversy exists, I am of the opinion that presenting the arguments used by one side but not the other is a violation of NPOV policy.

There are many reasons this has happened, but all of them seem to relate to one basic trend in this article’s history, which is that most of the time editors who favored the environmental viewpoint have been more numerous and more active than those who favor the hereditarian viewpoint. In theory this should not make a difference, because NPOV policy is that each viewpoint’s respective weight in the article should be determined by that viewpoint’s prevalence in the source material, not by its prevalence among the editors involved in the article. In practice, however, consensus to remove information about the hereditarian hypothesis from the article has generally been quite easy to obtain, while obtaining consensus to add back any such information has been nearly impossible. This trend has had in a long-term effect on the article’s overall balance.

What I would like to result from this mediation is an overall, long-term guideline on the degree of representation that each viewpoint on this topic should receive in the article. I agree with Varoon Arya that the most important point which can be determined here is whether the hereditarian hypothesis deserves enough space to be presented coherently and understandably; I am of the opinion that in the current article it is not given enough space even for this, and that the fact that it isn't is a violation of NPOV policy. However, in the interest in avoiding similar disputes in the future, I would also like this mediation to suggest an approximate percentage of coverage that this view should receive, as suggested by David.Kane.

Perhaps one way to begin this discussion would be if each of us were to suggest the proportions / percentages of representation that should be given to each of these views, assuming other editors here agree that the arguments used in favor of the hereditarian view should be included in any form. I think the sources I’ve mentioned about the nature of this controversy make it fairly clear that the hereditarian hypothesis is a significant-minority view, and as such deserves inclusion in the article, but other editors may disagree. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:17, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

T34CH's opening statement

There are several issues at play which have made reaching consensus difficult in this article. The foremost in my opinion is the title of the article. There is no such thing as "race-and-intelligence", but rather a debate over the connection between these two constructs. The current title sets an a-priori assumption that such a connection exists and is significant, introducing a bias not supported by the literature. I feel the article could be edited more productively if it had a less ambiguous (and IMO less POV) title. This point is echoed by Dbachmann (talk · contribs) in this thread. If this cannot be solved by changing the title, the lead should be adjusted to reflect some agreed upon focus. In the past, the lead has gone through many drastic changes; stabilizing the lead would help to focus editors and build consensus.

An important secondary issue is disagreement over interpretation of NPOV, and in particular wp:UNDUE. There is agreement that the "hereditarian" hypothesis (50/50 genes-to-environment according to Rushton and Jensen) is a minority hypothesis, but disagreement over how best to exhibit this status. Straightforward percentages of content seem restrictive and difficult to quantify. WP:VALID is also very important policy to consider in this issue.

A related issue which would greatly aid in consensus building is the need to agree on which literature reviews should be considered the most authoritative and neutral. By establishing the basic sources which should inform our understanding of academic consensus, many peripheral arguments will be solved. I believe the APA statement is an important starting point. It reads:

Reviewing the intelligence debate at its meeting of November 1994, the Board of Scientific Affairs (BSA) of the American Psychological Association (APA) concluded that there was urgent need for an authoritative report on these issues--one that all sides could use as a basis for discussion. Acting by unanimous vote, BSA established a Task Force charged with preparing such a report. Ulric Neisser, Professor of Psychology at Emory University and a member of BSA, was appointed Chair. The APA Board on the Advancement of Psychology in the Public Interest, which was consulted extensively during this process, nominated one member of the Task Force," the Committee on Psychological Tests and Assessment nominated another," a third was nominated by the Council of Representatives. Other members were chosen by an extended consultative process, with the aim of representing a broad range of expertise and opinion.[9]

I believe that controversial figures such as Rushton and Jensen should be approached as suggested in Wikipedia:RS#Extremist_and_fringe_sources. Only RS secondary sources which discuss their research should be used.

Finally, there have been many instances of editors describing or referring to the actions of other editors on the talk page rather than the content. For the most part, these claims come across as accusations rather than constructive criticism, and serve only to poison the editing atmosphere. Per wp:NPA and wp:TALK, there should be restrictions on what kind of discussions are allowed to stay on the talk page. (those policies allow for refactoring comments not related to content) Any genuine issues should be brought to wp:ANI or a similar noticeboard. T34CH (talk) 03:38, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Issues to be Discussed & Agenda

Agenda

• Determination of Issues to be Discussed
• Mediator statement of potential objective procedures to find resolution
• Timeline set of each discussion, going independant of each other possibly
• Mediator proposed several "solutions" (i.e. resolution may be a better word)
• Discussion of proposals, counterproposals by mediation participants
• 2nd phase of Mediator proposals
• Discussion
• Reaching final Framework of Consensus
• Implementation of Framework & putting it into motion on the article page itself
  • Closure of Mediation

Reubzz (talk) 22:03, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Statement of the Mediator

Please note participants, that I am not a Judge or Arbitor in this matter. WP policy is split between user issues and content issues. There is no "ruling body" on content issues, as the Mediation Committee still makes no rulings and the ArbCom only gets invovled in serious matters of disputes between users and/or administrators.

Simply put, this is a process for me to help guide you to a solution, not hear evidence and make a ruling. I wish I could just issue a non-binding ruling/guideline but process precludes me from doing so. Reubzz (talk) 04:14, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Attention All Parties: It will take some time for me to compile the statements and ALL the information I have gathered into a series of issues to be discussed and an objective process for determing the question's resolution. Please note this if it appears I am not taking immediate action. Reubzz (talk) 04:25, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

A note to everyone - I will be out for a large portion of the next 24 hours. My apologies. Reubzz (talk) 03:21, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Statement on mediator - request for experienced mediator

User:Reubzz has edited WP for 10 days with less than 500 edits. He did not bother to reveal his astonishing lack of experience. I have reported him for disruption at WP:ANI. I will not participate in mediation under such an inexperienced editor of WP. Please could we initiate moves to find someone better suited to the task? Mathsci (talk) 23:30, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I have already raised the issue at the talkpage of WP:MEDCAB, looking for either an explanation (returning user who has changed names?) or a remedy (another mediator, more experienced). I'd say let's stay put for now, as this mediator has initiated mediation correctly according to rules, so there's no point in trashing the work (opening statements, etc.) done so far.--Ramdrake (talk) 23:33, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I am not happy having a novice fooling around like this. They can explain themselves on WP:ANI. I do not like having my time wasted when there are complex issues at stake. I have no confidence at all in this completely inexperienced editor and consider their behaviour quite inappropriate and disingenuous. Sorry. We can continue the process with another mediator if possible (I will reinstate my statement then). You can make that suggestion on ANI if you like. Mathsci (talk) 23:39, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Hi. I help coordinate this project, and I'm on MedCom. Mind if I help? Xavexgoem (talk) 00:25, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Help is always welcome! I think we have a real chance to work this out, so I would like to see Ramdrake and Mathsci's concerns addressed. David.Kane (talk) 00:55, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I have also agreed to help advise Reubzz, and step in directly if necessary. I am not outright adding myself to the co-mediator list, but I will be watching and monitoring the discussion. If anyone has any questions about the process or anything else, feel free to contact me on my Talk page. The Wordsmith^Communicate 01:05, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Many thanks to The Wordsmith and Xavexgoem for their kind offer to assist Reubzz in guiding this mediation process; and many thanks also to Reubzz for his willingness to help and learn. I will now reinstate myself in the mediation process, Mathsci (talk) 01:27, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I am glad Mathsci is on board. I appreciate his concerns. I do think it is possible for a relative newcomer to Wikipedia to be an effective mediator (in part because I have seen very experienced Wikipedians fail completely at facilitating mediation) - it takes skills that are not associated with being a Wikipedian (patience, skill at identifying the underlying issues and main stumbling bloicks, skill at communication). It is true, that no one can mediate this conflict without a thorough understanding of our core policies, WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:NOR. Perhaps Reubuzz has studied these; perhaps Wordsmith is tutoring him on them; perhaps he has been reading Wikipedia for years, following discussions, and already knows them.

But my principle concern goes to a point Reubuzz made, a point that many Wikipedians have made over the years: we do not have good principles and mechanisms for resolving content disputes. But this really is a content dispute, and I do not think anyone can mediate it without having an ability to distinguish between different kinds of debates among scientists. For example, there is a big difference between Linus Pauling and James Watson debating the structure of DNA, and Linus Pauling and Jonas Salk debating how to treat the common cold. In the first case, both participants in the debate are experts in the same field, but this is not so in the second case. For example, there is a difference between journals like Science, or the Journal of the American Medical Association, or American Journal of Physical Anthropology, i.e. the journals of major scientific associations and thus flagship journals in their fields, versus privately funded journals. It is important to distinguish between different kinds of foundations, which may have different boards and different peer-review processes that reflect different kinds of funding priorities. Without understanding (or having a willingness to learn about) these matters, I don't see how any mediator will be able to help us stay focused on the robust or profound issues and questions, and the significant points of view. Note: I do not think anything I wrote in this paragraph is biased towards any "side" in this conflict. All sides in this conflict are arguing for the inclusion of what they believe to be significant views from reliable sources. In this conflict, which touches on matters in which different academic disciplines in both the life sciences and the social sciences have expertise, what counts as a reliable source or a significant view can vary depending on the question or the kinds of data one must analyze to answer the question. An effective mediator in my view is going to have to understand eough about science, and the specific sciences involved, to sort out these issues. The point is not to favor anthropology, biology, psychology or sociology. The point is to understand the place of each within academe. Slrubenstein | Talk 07:18, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I would happily agree with Slrubenstein if I had not already seen the distinction to which he refers be used in such a partisan manner. Oftentimes, editors attack an otherwise reliable source on the grounds that it is biased or unfit for inclusion. Sometimes this is done with recourse to other sources backing up such claims, sometimes it is done without such recourse, but on purely logical or moral grounds. As a matter of principle, I think editors should be encouraged to evaluate sources critically. However, there are no established principles regarding the kind of criticism which is to be applied. This is one of the weaknesses of the group of policies treating sources (WP:NPOV, WP:SYNTH, WP:OR and WP:RS). What are editors to do when a fully "reliable" source makes patently incorrect and/or illogical claims? Conversely, what are editors to do when sources which have a less than exemplary pedigree make perfectly correct and logical claims? I've seen cases of both while editing this article. In our own work (e.g. articles/dissertations/books written outside Wikipedia), we certainly criticize our sources, and we evaluate their claims on their merits, regardless of their origin. To do otherwise would be intellectually dishonest. I recognize that Wikipedia is not an academic journal, and that a line must be drawn between reporting on the work of others and original research. I do not think Wikipedia policy needs to be rewritten, but I do think that the mediators should consider that this topic is one which requires particular care when examining sources critically. --Aryaman (talk) 08:08, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

"Editors should evaluate sources critically". Unfortunately that is against the core policies of wikipedia and why, over the last few months, a futile debate (WP:OR) has been taking place on the talk page that has been reported on multiple noticeboards. We should only report on what sources say; that includes sources giving evaluations of other sources. That has always been how wikipedia has worked. We might notice that authors are academically distinguished, e.g. are fellows of the Royal Society or members of the National Academy of Sciences. Wikipedians should not make the mistake of trying to use talk pages as pseudo-academic forums. Mathsci (talk) 11:35, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Right, Arya - we never say a source is inaccurate. If there is a significant view from another reliable source that says the first view is inaccurate, we can include it. There is no debarte over NPOV's core principle, that we have to include all significant views from reliable sources. My point is that in academic debates, the significance of a view or reliability of a source for a particular view is often relative to the discipline in which the research was trained or does research. For example, just because someone has a PhD. in physics or even won the Nobel Prize does not mean that their views about Virginia Wolf are significant; similarly, a journal on Medieval French Literature may be peer-reviewed, but that does not make it a reliable source about chemistry. Do you really disagree with these points? The two examples I provided are crude. When it comes to anthropology, biology, psychology and sociology journals publishing articles on race, intelligence, or race and intelligence, determining reliability and significance is more complicated - I hope you agree with this too. And since it is more complicated, I believe a mediator needs to know something about these disciplines and what each discipline considers a reliable source for what kind of research. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:02, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Quick question: to what extent are the expressly non-hereditarian sources in opposition to hereditarian theories? Xavexgoem (talk) 13:25, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Excellent question! There are many "non-hereditarian sources" and I would hesitate to generalize. But I think that the best place to start would be with Sternberg and Nisbett (surely two of the most prominent non-hereditarians) in their articles in 2005 issue of Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Vol. 11, No. 2.. I think it is fair to say that non-hereditarians firmly believe that the explanation for racial differences in IQ is 100% environmental but that they are willing to seriously consider the substance of "hereditarian theories." David.Kane (talk) 13:37, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Also, the sources I listed at the end of my opening statement are all non-hereditarian (the statements could be considered neutral). This should give you an idea.--Ramdrake (talk) 14:47, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

(ec)

Those papers (David's link) are about policy based on IQ measurements, not on the interpretation of between-group IQ differences. Actual lit reviews would be a better place to look. But in those papers, Sternberg says that IQ is not useful to inform policy, and Nesbitt's main point is that race is a poor construct to use when comparing blacks and whites (though he does conclude that the evidence for an actual intelligence difference is "nil"). The important distinction that I see between the "sides" is that Jensen/Rushton et al see evidence for a "true" difference (to put it in psychometric terms), while Sternberg/Nesbitt et al see too small of a signal-to-noise ratio to make that discrimination (ie, issues with race definitions, IQ interpretations, confounding variables in the environment, cultural bias in the tests, etc etc). The "non-hereditarian" view would probably be best summed up as, "if there is a between-group genetic difference, we can't measure it, and it doesn't make enough of an impact to matter given current conditions." T34CH (talk) 14:50, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

To elaborate on David Kane's comment: In my experience, it largely depends upon the source. If one takes the more sober proponents of the environmentalist or non-hereditarian position, such as James R. Flynn, then there is a purely scientific opposition. That is to say, Flynn takes the arguments of hereditarians such as Arthur Jensen seriously, and evaluates them on their scientific merits. There are other environmentalist, however, who reject hereditarian arguments on what are, by and large, moral grounds. They often accuse hereditarians of "racialism" or outright "racism", and put great emphasis on the controversies surrounding the individuals supporting the hereditarian position, questioning their academic credentials, their sources of funding, their affiliations, and anything which could give the impression that hereditarians are not to be taken seriously except as proponents of "radical racist science", and typically do very little to contradict the actual arguments hereditarian use to support their claims. While hereditarians take the criticism and contrary findings of sober non-hereditarians such as Flynn seriously, they typically respond to such moral accusations as lacking any scientific value. It's a highly charged situation, and there's quite a bit of rhetoric and moral posturing involved.

As far as the positions themselves go: The "hereditarian" position posits a mixture of genetic and environmental causes. As a result, proponents are typically more open to findings which advance claims regarding particular environmental factors which could influence the development of intelligence. They directly oppose, however, any attempts to explain all of the difference between groups as due to environmental causes alone. This, they argue, is simply not possible given the widely accepted results of within-group studies (e.g. that genetics plays a considerable role in the manifestation of intelligence within groups of the same racial or ethnic background). They further argue that the non-hereditarian position is fueled more by socio-political interests than by critical scientific acumen.

The "environmentalist" position posits that only environmental causes can explain the IQ differences between groups. Most - and, typically, the most vocal - proponents categorically reject any research which shows that genetics could play any role in this difference. There are some who are compelled to admit that genetics may play some role, but that it is so small, that it's best for all involved if we just ignore it.

Granted, both positions are hard to prove given the nature of the subject and the limitations of the research methods. If we were able to ignore the moral component, I think the non-hereditarian position would reveal itself as the more scientifically radical of the two, given the nature of the position itself. In the only study conducted to determine consensus on this, 45% of polled experts reported holding views compatible with the hereditarian position, while 15% held views compatible with non-hereditarianism. The study was conducted in the late 1980s, so it's unclear how much those numbers have shifted. Several editors here reject the validity of the study entirely, and even mentioning it can cause conflict. I'm willing to grant that its results are somewhat dated, but I do not think that there has been any radical breakthrough in research in the last 20 years which would make such a large portion of the academic community change its mind. On the contrary, proponents of the hereditarian view feel that their position has been strengthened by findings which have been produced since then. With that being said, there is no shortage of claims from non-hereditarians that only a few isolated "radical mavericks" hold hereditarian views. As there has been no formal study since the 1987 Snyderman and Rothman study to determine this, I think it's obvious that such claims should be taken with a grain of salt.

These are, in my opinion, the core points anyone coming to this discussion needs to know in order to determine whether the hereditarian position deserves adequate representation in the article under discussion. --Aryaman (talk) 15:48, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I would ask the mediator to compare my comments and Arya's closely. I think we have very different approaches not just to the article but to how to mediate the article. I am not at all questioning Arya's good faith, merely calling attention to a difference in approach. Arya is comparing the views of two views, hereditarian and non-hereditarian. The intent behind my comments in this section and above is to suggest another approach. My approach is to start with different kinds of researchers with different kinds of expertise as a basis for sorting out significance and reliability. My reason is, I fear that if we start with the two antagonistic views, we will just go in circles: supporters of the herditarian view will claim that they are the real specialists and that their view is the most significant and proponents of the non-hereditarian view will claim that they are the real experts and their view is the most significant. I think the way out of this circle is to take these views (hereditarian/non-hereditarian) as conclusions different researchers have reached. Instead of starting with the conclusions, let's see where people started out. That means looking at the different disciplines that look at these kinds of questions, and whose training gives competence in what kinds of research. I think Arya's approach is common sense, but I think it has been tried multiple times as a way to resolve the conflict and has never worked, that is why I am trying to articulate an alternate approach. I do not mean to get into a new argument with Arya, I just want to point out that our approaches to dealing with this conflict among editors involve starkly different approaches to how we decide what sources to look at and how to assess the weight of different views. All I can ask is that the mediator consider both approaches before deciding how to proceed. Slrubenstein | Talk 17:35, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I fully accept Slrubenstein's point that we are talking about two different approaches here. And I'm happy to see he's assuming good faith. I think that, if we are here to discuss the entire article, and beyond that, how "race and intelligence" fits into the wider scheme of human knowledge, then Slrubenstein's approach is certainly superior to my own. It would also be good to put the discussion in its historical context, and I think that's something Slrubenstein and I can agree on. However, my impression is that the article needs nothing beyond a simple introduction to the topic as it fits within the larger framework of the sciences (per WP:MNA). The debate, which is the core topic the article is about, takes place between psychometricians and behavioral geneticists. I'm not convinced that gathering views from anthropologists, biologists, sociologists, etc. is going to improve our understanding of this core issue. It might relativise it - and perhaps unfairly so - but I don't see it helping to explain the arguments involved.

Further, as I understand it, this particular conflict revolves around whether or not the hereditarian position (either as one of two main positions or as simply one outcome reached by a group of scientists among many, many scientists) deserves to be adequately represented in the article. Thus, the mediation process intends to help us solve this particular problem. I don't expect this mediation to solve all the problems with this article. But I do hope that this process will help us establish whether or nor it is justified to explain the hereditarian position clearly and coherently. --Aryaman (talk) 17:56, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I would like to add a different perception. Varoon Arya wrote: There are other environmentalist, however, who reject hereditarian arguments on what are, by and large, moral grounds. They often accuse hereditarians of "racialism" or outright "racism", and put great emphasis on the controversies surrounding the individuals supporting the hereditarian position, questioning their academic credentials, their sources of funding, their affiliations, and anything which could give the impression that hereditarians are not to be taken seriously except as proponents of "radical racist science", and typically do very little to contradict the actual arguments hereditarian use to support their claims. However, in my experience, the bulk of the criticism aimed at the science behind the hereditarian argument is that it is bad science, in the mathematical and statistical sense (samples of questionable representativity, overinterpretation of correlation coefficients, ignoring data which goes counter to the argument being made, etc.) To me, this is not a rejection based on moral grounds at all, but it is very much based on scientific grounds. I don't think that there is disagreement that the hereditarian position needs to be adequately represented, but I believe one of the main points of dissent is "how much representation is adequate".--Ramdrake (talk) 18:43, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Ramdrake that the central goal for mediation is to determine "how much representation is adequate" for the hereditarian position in this article. (Perhaps we all agree on this?) And that is why my main suggestion is that the mediators work/suggest/cajole us into figuring this out. It could be controlled as a specific percentage of the article or as a specific raw number of words. (Just telling us "reasonable" or "appropriate" representation will not solve anything. (Once we have that, I feel confident that we could all agree on what those words should be. David.Kane (talk) 19:31, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

“I don't think that there is disagreement that the hereditarian position needs to be adequately represented, but I believe one of the main points of dissent is ‘how much representation is adequate’.”

I think that given the current state of the article as well as its recent history, this isn’t a meaningful distinction. Although when we’re discussing general policy, the people who approve of the article in its current state tend to agree that the hereditarian position ought to be “adequately represented”, as soon as we start discussing actual content the same people tend to oppose the addition of any material intended to represent this viewpoint. In its current state, the article does not provide any information about why proponents of this theory hold the opinion that they do. So by opposing the addition of any material which would describe the hereditarian position, several users are in effect trying to keep this viewpoint out of the article, even if they don’t recognize/admit the fact that they’re doing so.

The most recent example of this was when I attempted to add a brief summary of the hereditarian position to the “heritability” section of the article, shortly before this mediation case started. My edit did not make this section of the article any longer, so if this section did not violate WP:UNDUE before my edit, it should not have done so afterwards either. And in any case, even after my edit the hereditarian view was given no more than 15% as much space as was given to environmental explanations, which is about the minumum required to describe the hereditarian view coherently. If other users here were in agreement that the hereditarian position needs to be described “adequately”, this edit should not have been controversial. However, Muntuwandi opposed it for the following reason: “I disagree with the changes made by Occam. I believe that the strongly hereditarian view is a minority perspective that at present is largely restricted to the pioneer fund crew. Unless or until the situation changes, the hereditarian hypothesis should be treated as a minority viewpoint, and should not be given WP:UNDUE weight here.”

Nobody is claiming that the hereditarian hypothesis should be given undue weight, but by using this as a reason to reject even the minimum amount of coverage required to explain it coherently, Muntuwandi is essentially claiming that any adequate description of this viewpoint is a violation of WP:UNDUE. Whenever we’re discussing any specific content, this attitude seems quite common. Therefore, I think it’s important that this mediation case not only resolve whether or not the hereditarian hypothesis should be represented in the article (which is something most of the editors here claim to agree with in principle), but also provide a more specific guideline about how much space it could be given, so that any and all edits which attempt to provide an explanation of this viewpoint can’t continue to be rejected on the grounds that they give it “too much” coverage. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:37, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I would like to try and briefly summarize two of the central points raised in our discussion so far. Forgive me if you feel I fail to characterize your comments or your position correctly, as that's not my intent. I'm simply trying to identify the common ground so that we can build upon it. I'm not trying to do the job of the mediators, either. I'm just trying to make sure I'm on the same page as everyone else here.

The "Minority" vs. "Fringe" Question: Slrubenstein (and possibly Mathsci also) has brought up the point that it may be the case that all researchers who study the correlation between race and intelligence, and indeed, the whole sub-field, might be considered "fringe" if pitted against broader categories of scientific pursuit, such as anthropology, biology or sociology. S/He's very likely right. The study of this correlation is by no means a major area of research when seen from the perspective of the sciences as a whole, and we might well be able to describe it as on the "fringe". To my knowledge, no one is trying to portray this as some huge field of research, or to exaggerate its relative significance. There are literally a handful of scholars on either side, no more. So, I don't think anyone here would object to this point raised by Slrubenstein. Can we, then, agree that this would identify scholars on both sides of the ideological divide, such as Flynn on the one side and Jensen on the other, as studying on the "fringe" of mainstream science?

Ramdrake seems to agree that the hereditarian position is held by a "minority of very vocal scientists". If s/he used the term "minority" instead of "fringe" selectively, then I think this is a sign of progress which we can build upon. Of course, it seems s/he's still open to referring to it as a "fringe" position, but it might be progress all the same.

Muntuwandi also refers to the hereditarian position as a "minority" position. Again, if this was intentional, then we're definitely making progress in the right direction. I would like to (in good humor, of course) remind Muntuwandi of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon when discussing connections to the Pioneer Fund. Given their list of associates, it would not be very hard to connect a substantial portion of academe to the Pioneer Fund in some way or another.

T34CH goes so far as to say there is agreement that hereditarianism is a "minority" position, and for him/her, it's simply a question of how much coverage it should receive.

Distribute Justice, Captain Occam and David Kane have all voiced the opinion that the hereditarian position should safely qualify as a "minority" view and not "fringe". Personally, when I hear "fringe", I tend to think of pseudo-scientific claims such as "the earth is flat", "the earth is hollow", "the moon landings were a hoax", or more generally, of developments such as Transhumanism. I don't think of the work of otherwise duly qualified scholars such as Flynn, Jensen, Gottfredson, Plomin, Sternberg, or Wicherts, all of whom represent important institutions of higher learning. Am I alone in this? I hope not.

Thus, on the question of "mainstream vs. fringe", I see good reasons to think that we're slowly forming a consensus that hereditarianism is a "minority" position. Please indicate if this is not the case.

The Question of Proportions: Ramdrake mentions that one of his principle concerns is that, by "trying to properly explain the minority hereditarian position, undue weight may be given to it within the article". This is, indeed, a valid concern. We don't want the article to give the impression that the hereditarian position is held in any higher esteem than it actually may be (though, I think we all agree that there is some difficulty in establishing exactly how much esteem it actually enjoys). We all seem to be willing to agree that more experts probably hold the environmental position than hold the hereditarian position, and that the article should reflect this. Can we, then, agree that, regardless of the amount of space given to the hereditarian position in comparison to the environmental position, that the hereditarian position, as a minority position, needs to be presented coherently, or in Ramdrake's words, "properly"? Further, can we agree to focus on a coherent presentation of the hereditarian position first, determining how much is necessary, and then work towards building the environmental position accordingly? If we take that approach, then I think we should be able to solve two problems at once.

I would appreciate hearing from those who have commented thus far regarding whether the above characterization is fair, and whether you could agree to the points raised. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 22:37, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure why the hereditarian and environmental positions have to be (i.e. in fact are) opposed. By way of example, I have astigmatism. This is an inherited condition. I wea correctiv lenses, which is an environmental remedy that corrects my vision problem. It is possible that someone may have low intelligence for genetic reasons, but the proper kind of education can improve the person's performance on a range of cognitive tasks, thus correcting for the deficit; if people continue to score low, it could be because of inadequate education. Is this position hereditarian, because I admit to an inherited cause? Or is it environmental, because my explanation for continued between-group differences is environmental? My point is simply that these two positions do not naturally have to oppose one another. This is one reason why I think that starting with opposing positions, the other view I just suggested disappears, and we just go in circles. The approach I suggested, above, might lead us to a way through this impasse by revealing a debate involving more than two views, a debae in which both environment and heredity are variables but not the main ones debated by mainstream scientists. I could be wrong, I am only saying that we will neve know this unless we start by bracketing our assumption that there are two opposing positions. Asking what are the dominant different (significant) debates in different academic disciplines (and featured in what members of a discipline consider the reliable journals of their profession) is, I think, the way to start. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:51, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

That's an very good point, Slrubenstein. In my opinion, they need not be presented as diametrically opposed - though, this may be because the "hereditarian" perspective allows for both genetic and environmental causes, and is open to debate and further research regarding the relative proportions of each. I think everyone agrees that more research is needed, and even Jensen has clearly stated that none of these are absolute values, because populations change, and the values will always change relative to those populations. (He also strongly opposes those who claim that race mixture decreases intelligence, and has offered some evidence that it might actually increase the potential for its manifestation, but, that is an aspect of his research which we have not explored here.) The recent edits by DJ went a long way towards breaking down the (largely false, IMO) dichotomy. Maybe more of this is what you mean?

As to your question: The research which touches on this indicates that programs which promote the development of intelligence have the most success with young children. Children are, so to speak, more "malleable" via environmental factors. This malleability decreases sharply with age, so it is very important to receive support and encouragement while young. The older we get, the more our genetic endowment comes to the fore, and the less malleable we are via the environment. We still retain our ability to learn, but we have a diminished chance of increasing our actual general mental ability, regardless how much we study. Now, depending upon how much of our actual mental ability is determined by our genes, that early encouragement can make a significant difference in our mental ability as adults. I think everyone agrees on this point. The disagreement sets in when it is claimed that, even with the best possible environmental stimuli, a person with a low genetic endowment will never breach a certain point in terms of intelligence. But really, this is roughly like saying that, regardless how much good food, fresh air and exercise a person has as a youth, if they are genetically determined to be short, while they may be able to increase their height a bit, it won't be by much (height is ca. 85-90% heritable in Caucasian adult males, and about 75-80% heritable in Caucasian females; for Asians and Africans the numbers are sometimes reported as significantly lower, sometimes as slightly lower; some posit that variation in heritability may be itself due to environmental factors, with heritability increasing as environmental stress decreases). At the same time, and this is key, this does not mean that person would, for example, never be able to play basketball professionally, a sport in which height is considered highly advantageous. Just ask Muggsy Bogues. In other words, "intelligence", though a good indicator of overall success in Western society, is never absolute, and must never be taken as an indicator of value, which is actually inherent in each and every human by virtue of his or her humanity.

As to the point about bracketing: I really don't know if there are "other" explanations for the difference. In everything I've read, the discussion centers around environmental factors, hereditary factors, and how these two may or may not be involved in the development of intelligence. Perhaps this is because most of it stems from either psychometrics or behavioral genetics. It's a bit open-ended, but if you have something in mind or have an idea of where to look, please make mention of it. --Aryaman (talk) 23:34, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

The hereditarian position: how much is enough?

New bunches of statements.

There seems to be disagreement over what constitutes an adequate description for the hereditarian viewpoint. What do you think constitutes an adequate description?

Be as brief of verbose as you need to be.

Statement by Ramdrake

There are a number of papers discussing the hereditarian position. However, it is important to note that the great majority of those papers come from a few researchers in the field of psychometrics, a few of them particularly prolific (I'm among others thinking of Rushton with 50+ papers on the subject). However, this subject should in all logic also interest the fields of anthropology, population genetics and neuroscience among others. Searching through those fields finds few if any proponents of the hereditarian position, and a certain number of researchers that have written papers on the subject either on a cautionary tone, or who have outright denounced the research for a number of reasons. It therefore seems to have been uniformly, heavily criticized outside of the field of psychology, and even within that field, its legitimate status has come under attack by many (Mackintosh, Nisbett, etc.) Without insisting that the hereditarian position is fringe, this at least should demonstrate that it is the position of a small minority. Therefore,if it is to be described, it should be described rather succintly. Previously, discussions were held to introduce one such argument used by some hereditarian researchers, namely that intelligence is a function of brain size, and that Blacks have smaller brains. TO my knowledge, the only researchers advancing this argument are Rushton and in a lesser position Jensen. Another section which was pushed for reintroduction was a section from the Dec 2006 version of the article which waxed verbose on the social outcomes of IQ, linking the lower IQ scores of Blacks to all sorts of social misfortunes. I am of the contention that the hereditarian position can be adequately summarized in the article without devoting entire sections to suggestions which are tantamount to OR and which come very close to what one could call scientific racism.--Ramdrake (talk) 21:44, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Addendum #1

Reply to Captain Occam:With all due respect, I believe an important caveat needs to be introduced here: virtually all of the evidence for (or against) this theory is within the field of psychometrics isn't an accurate description. Virtually all of the evidence for this theory has been claimed by psychometricians is more correct. Most of the claimed evidence comes the fields of genetics, anthropology, neurology, etc. and has been interpreted by psychometricians to support the hereditarian position (one needs only to think of Rushton's notorious meta-analyses). It is also in part because psychometricians have claimed to reinterpret this data to support their hypothesis that they have come under criticism, as non-experts dabbling in another field (see the faous example of Watson's claim about African intelligence), even though they are experts in their own field. I have other issues with this statement, but I'll wait for Reubzz to confirm where is the best place to make those comments.--Ramdrake (talk) 00:25, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Addendum #2

I still maintain that most of the evidence presented to support the hereditarian hypothesis comes from fields other that psyhchometrics: the brain size issue comes from neuroanatomy, heritability and between group heritability come from population genetics, and so on. The only supporting arguments which would be the purview of psychometricians are IQ test results themselves and considerations of g loading. Also, there are some affirmations that just aren't true: one topic in genetics which is relevant to this article is whether socially-defined racial groups correlate with genetic clusters based on biogeographical ancestry. (The consensus seems to be that they do..) We have supplied several reviews which show that the mainstream position in genetics is actually that socially-constructed races are not supported by genetic cluster analysis. I have also supplied several reviews to the effect that the hereditarian hypothesis finds few if any adherents outside the field of psychometrics. Therefore, I would say that devoting 25% of the article to the hereditarian hyptohesis (when of the remaining 75% we have to talk about the history of the debate, the consensus position on "race" and on "intelligence", those who hold these studies meaningless because they refute the biological reality of races or that intelligence can be reduced to a single number, and then the environemental hypothesis basically boils down to given equal validity to the hereditarian hypothesis.--01:42, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Occam, I have no doubt that this is how you see the situation. However, other people may see the situation in a way very different to the way you see it. Personnally, assigning fields to these chapters, I find that 60 of the 96 pages deal with subjects other than psychometrics per se (dividing up chapters between sciences when chapters are multidisciplinary). The proportion would go even higher if we were to do the same analysis for Rushton, possible the main proponent of the hereditarian position nowadays.--Ramdrake (talk) 03:05, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Addendum #3

I take strong exception to Varoon Arya's statement that psychometricians are the "real experts" in this subject and that other fields are "tangentially involved": by the very definition of its terms "race and intelligence" is a multidisciplinary endeavour, partaking of genetics (for heredity concerns, WGH and BGH and concerns of the biological meaning of "race"), neurobiology (for the anatomical substratum of intelligence), psychology (for IQ measurements), anthropology (for concerns of race as a social construct and in some measure as a biological construct through physical anthropology), sociology (for policy implications) and even philosophy of science (for the ethics of the research). All these fields are involved with no one field having obviously "more expertise" than another. Therefore, I believe we should evaluate the position of all these fields on the matter as being on par with each other, as opposed to psychometrics (arguably the one most favorable to the hereditarian position) being given a dominant position over the others. This might be one of the points we need to mediate specifically. However, re-reading Varoon Arya's comment, I'm thinking fo something else we should probably discuss and agree on: is the article about the "environmental vs hereditarian debate", in which case VA is actually right that it ouccurs betweeen psychometricians and behavioral geneticists mainly, or is it about "race and intelligence as a field of study", in which case my comment just above stands: we need to involve all other fields on a par with psychometricians and behavioral geneticists.--Ramdrake (talk) 17:11, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe Slrubenstein's point is that a geneticist doesn't have to have studied the heritability of intelligence for his/her view of heritability to be germane to the topic, or an anthropologist to have studied "race and intelligence" directly for their views on race to be pertinent. Any criticism which they level at the topic, as long as it is grounded in their area of expertise could be grounds for inclusion, space and notability permitting.--Ramdrake (talk) 19:30, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Addendum #4

On the subject of WP:MNA, I'd be very careful, as some criticism comes from scientists who directly challenge the biololgical meaning of "races", and others who challenge IQ as a proper representation of intelligence. We cannot start the article by making the assumptions that race is biologically meaningful, or that IQ properly measures intelligence, as the first of these is against mainstream opinion and the second is contested by a significant proportion of experts. These considerations, which pre-empt the debate, also need to be included in the article.--Ramdrake (talk) 19:40, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Statement by David.Kane

The article should devote at least 25% of its content, measured by word-count, to an explanation of, and the evidence for, the hereditarian position, as discussed in papers in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. David.Kane (talk) 22:25, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Why? Slrubenstein | Talk 22:39, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

It would be helpful for you to give a brief explanation for this specific number, so we can see your understanding behind it and how you are interpreting the dispute and WP policy. Reubzz (talk) 22:51, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I am not wedded to 25% specifically. If mediation concluded that 15% or 50% was appropriate, then that would be fine with me. I just think that it is critical to have some specific number chosen. Without that guidance, then the next time someone adds a paragraph on, say, brain size (with references to the peer-reviewed literature), then some other editor will, reasonably enough, delete it and cite WP:UNDUE as his reason. This is the central problem that we need to solve. Without this sort of guidance, the cycle will just repeat. I choose 25% because it seemed a reasonable compromise. There are two major positions: environmental and hereditarian. I believe that strongly that the hereditarian position is not WP:FRINGE. I think that there are strong arguments for both environmental and hereditarian. I would hesitate to characterize either of them as majority or minority. Instead, I would say that the majority position is: We don't know. Putting all that together, 25% seems like a reasonable number. David.Kane (talk) 01:12, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Statement by T34CH

I hate to think of this in hard numbers, as this is very limiting. It should be enough to explain what the hypothesis is and why, without getting into a back and forth debate about the evidence. 25% is a strange number to use if we're also going to include a description of the each of the environmental hypotheses, as this would give it equal or greater presence in the article. (this is especially true if we are to have an overview section, history, etc etc) The APA lit review finds some evidence for environmental influence and no evidence for genetic influence. Thus, more space and attention should be given to the explanations for racial differences in IQ (as opposed to intelligence) where some evidence exists.

Of course, a different focus and structure to the article would change my answer. I'm open to the ideas Slrubenstein is suggesting. T34CH (talk) 23:37, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I think Occam is getting us further afield than is productive. Are we to begin discussing all the source material and content already, or only the question at hand?

• Snyderman & Rothman is neither scientific nor comprehensive, so using it as a basis for the structure or content of the article is a mistake.
• I have no idea what Occam is trying to show by stating that the brain size article from 1980 is cited 89 times. There are papers from 2009 that are cited 600 times.
• Getting into the correlation between IQ and achievement is less interesting than the correlation between IQ and intelligence.
• The Jensen chapter is totally outside the topic of discussion, as of course Jensen is going to claim that he is right. It also (at least the first half that I looked over) goes much further in depth on anthropology and sociology than psychometrics. Apparently Jensen thinks these are extremely notable issues to explore. T34CH (talk) 05:11, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Re: [10]. Varoon knows very well that Miele a controversial figure[11] (he's the one that edited that out of Miele's wp article[12]), and that we're more interested in peer-reviewed scientific sources than controversial figures interviewing controversial figures for use as "representative sources". T34CH (talk) 07:20, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I endorse Mathsci's suggestion. We should build a list of acceptable representative sources and use those to decide the content of the article, not the other way around. T34CH (talk) 17:11, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Re: "Other disciplines". VA claims that we should ignore everything but psychometricians and "behavioral geneticists". According to the indexes used by the journal Behavioral Genetics, there appears to be quite a lot of cross over with Anthropology, Biology, and Social Sciences. It's quite impossible to believe that such cross over goes only one way (that Behavioral Genetics informs those disciplines, but not the other way around). The Human Genome Project's page on the topic uses intelligence as an example and frames the issue much as the non-psychometrician "environmentalists" have: as a problem with no good definitions, questionable validity and reliability, and a high degree of difficulty in extrapolating in-group findings to explain between-group differences. Let's keep in mind that the genome project is only talking about one trait here. Throw race in the mix and you multiply the uncertainty. This is why I think that when researchers such as Jensen say they have conclusive evidence, they should be treated as holding a clearly minority opinion. T34CH (talk) 20:05, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Re: Jensen's conclusions, in Jensen & Rushton 2005, the claim is made that there is a definite conclusion: "Our conclusion, that the Black–White IQ difference is partly heritable, accords with previous analytic reviews of this literature." They refer to this as a conclusion several times in the article. Sounds like they have found conclusive evidence to me. That's why I had said that, because I read the article in the past. Please stop your snide little remarks about me. T34CH (talk) 07:58, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Captain Occam

I agree with Ramdrake that the majority of support for the hereditarian hypothesis comes from researchers in the field of psychometrics, and that it receives less support from researchers in most other areas. However, something that I think needs to be considered is that virtually all of the evidence for (or against) this theory is within the field of psychometrics, so psychometricians are inevitably going to be more qualified to make judgments about the strength or weaknesses of this evidence than researchers in other fields would be. Hypothetically, one might expect geneticists to be able to make a judgment about whether genes which influence IQ are distributed unequally between ethnic groups, but at this point most geneticists are agreed that none of the specific genes which influence IQ have yet been conclusively identified, and only a few of them (such as DTNBP1 and CHRM2) have been identified as candidates. Therefore, while genetics can certainly be expected to make a significant contribution to this debate once it becomes possible to compare the distribution of IQ-influencing genes between ethnic groups, genetics has not yet progressed to the point where it can provide much evidence about the cause of the IQ difference.

That isn’t to say genetics has nothing to contribute to this topic; at the very least, one topic in genetics which is relevant to this article is whether socially-defined racial groups correlate with genetic clusters based on biogeographical ancestry. (The consensus seems to be that they do, although Varoon Arya can provide more papers on this point than I can.) However, if the article provides the views of geneticists about the cause of the IQ difference with equal weight to the views of psychometricians about this, we risk running into the problem Slrubenstein described of ignoring the issue of which academics are most qualified to interpret the evidence in question.

The way I think the hereditarian hypothesis’s representation in the article should be determined is by first determining the percentage of psychometricians who favor this viewpoint. The Snyderman & Rothman study found that a majority of intelligence researchers favor this viewpoint. Not all psychometricians are intelligence researchers, but intelligence researchers make up a sizable portion of them, so assuming the rate of acceptance of this theory is somewhat lower in other areas of psychometrics, we can place the acceptance of this theory at around 50% in psychometrics as a whole. Then there’s the question of how the views of psychometricians should be weighted against the views of researchers in other areas. Although researchers in other areas are obviously more numerous than psychometricians, as I stated earlier they also are not quite as qualified to evaluate evidence which is almost exclusively within the field of psychometrics. Therefore, I think viewpoints inside and outside psychometics should be given approximately equal representation in the article. Since this means the views of psychometricians being given around 50% of the space devoted to explanations of the IQ difference, and the hereditarian hypothesis being given around 50% of the space devoted to the views of psychometricians, this means the space given to the hereditarian hypothesis should be around 50% of 50%, or 25%. In other words, I largely agree with David.Kane’s suggestion, although not necessarily for the same reason.

Regarding specific points: the most contentious line of data I’ve suggested be included is the one about variation in brain size, and part of the reason for others’ opposition to this has been because it’s discussed mainly by Jensen and Rushton. However, the most commonly-cited paper I’ve been able to find about this is not by Jensen or Rushton; it’s Analysis of brain weight. I. Adult brain weight in relation to sex, race, and age by Ho, Roessmann, Straumfjord, and Monroe. This was published in Archives of Pathology and Laborotory Medicine, and according to Google Scholar is cited by 89 other papers; Jensen and Rushton are not by any means the only other researchers discussing this study. Therefore, it seems negligent for our article to not mention it.

The last specific piece of content that’s been discussed so far is the functional and social significance of the IQ difference. I don’t think this section should be as contentious as it apparently is, for three reasons. First: the functional and social effects of the IQ difference would be the same regardless of whether this IQ difference is caused by genetic or environmental factors, so discussing this does not favor one hypothesis over another. Second: the social and functional outcomes with which IQ correlates are not particularly controversial; for example, the APA statement regards them as well-established. And third: the social and functional outcome of the IQ difference is perhaps the least taboo aspect of this topic. It has a well-known name—the racial achievement gap—and is discussed by well-known education specialists such as Abigail Thernstrom. (Thernstrom recognizes the social and functional effects of the IQ difference, but believes the IQ difference to be environmentally caused, and potentially reducible through remedial education.) To dismiss the views of the vice-chair of the United States Commission on Civil Rights as “scientific racism” seems absurd. --Captain Occam (talk) 23:59, 16 November 2009 (UTC

Ramdrake, I believe it best to issue a responce in the form of your own statement I would respond via an "addendum" to your statement above so we can concentrate the viewpoints of all editors. If each statement initiates a new debate, it will be difficult to follow. Please remember to find a resolutional proposal in your statement. Should the Hereditarian viewpoint be given 25% as some parties have suggested, a smaller amount, a greater amount, etc.? Reubzz (talk) 01:18, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

What you’re saying about evidence from other fields is true as far as Rushton’s r/K life history theory is concerned, but if you read Jensen’s writings on this topic (I consider Jensen to be the central authority on the hereditarian viewpoint, just as Flynn is for the environmental viewpoint), you’ll find that at least 75% of the evidence he discusses is purely psychometric. While the views of researchers in other areas would be important in a discussion about Rushton’s r/K theory, his theory is a relatively small part of the hereditarian viewpoint in general, and this theory in general is definitely based almost entirely on psychometric evidence.

Something else that I neglected to mention in my original statement is that I also don’t think we have a reliable way of determining the percentage of researchers outside psychometrics who support or oppose the hereditarian view, because the only study about the percentage of researchers who hold each viewpoint (Snyderman & Rothman) was limited to intelligence researchers. This is another reason why I don’t think the assumption that the hereditarian hypothesis is generally opposed outside this field is a good reason to not explain it coherently in the article. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:38, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I would ask all parties to refrain from making these massive statements. This subject is anything but simple, but I do believe that there must be a way of shortening the ideas you wish to express. It becomes difficult and stressful when I come back to my computer and find a massive discussion awaiting a long read. This is nothing against anyone, but for the sake of everyone, please try your best to shorten your statements. Cheers! Reubzz (talk) 01:13, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

When you said “Be as brief of verbose as you need to be”, I interpreted that to mean it wasn’t a problem for me to post something as lengthy as I thought was necessary to explain the reasoning behind my viewpoint. How long do you think would be the maximum reasonable length for these statements? --Captain Occam (talk) 01:39, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I completely understand that this is a complex topic and thus no 3 sentences can explain a position. I am not setting a guideline or arbitrary line like "500 words". It is just a personal request to keep in mind in the future to try the best you can to limit your statements and discussions. If you need 10,000 words to explain or just 50, I'm cool. But you'll know from now on where I stand on that scale. :) Reubzz (talk) 02:00, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

My reply to Ramdrake’s newest point: first of all, I wasn’t suggesting that the hereditarian hypothesis be given 25% of the total space in the article; I’m not sure whether or not that’s what David.Kane was suggesting, but I was under the impression that this isn’t what he wanted either. What I was suggesting is that it be given 25% of the space that’s devoted specifically to explanations of the cause of the IQ gap, with the remaining 75% being given to the various environmental explanations that have been proposed for it. (SES, stereotype threat, educational differences, and so on.) This is percentage is lower than the percentage it was given in the 2006 version, so I’m conceding that this is one way our article shouldn’t be modeled after that version.

“We have supplied several reviews which show that the mainstream position in genetics is actually that socially-constructed races are not supported by genetic cluster analysis.”

You’ve provided several studies that you claimed said this, and most of them only stated that genetics fails to support the idea of races with platonic categories with discrete boundaries. We discussed this only a few days ago. You quoted one such study, and the portion of it that you quoted stated that this correlation exists. The same study also pointed out that race is useful in a biomedical setting, because races have varying rates of reactions to certain drugs. Reactions to drugs are determined by genetics, not by social categories, so the correlation between socially-defined races and genetic clusters is clearly strong enough for races to differ in biological traits.

Regarding the evidence that’s used in favor of the hereditarian hypothesis: I think you must not be familiar with the evidence that’s cited in favor of this if you’re under the impression that most of it is outside the field of psychometrics. Since Arthur Jensen is generally considered the most prominent proponent of the hereditarian perspective, and his book The g Factor is his most detailed explanation of his viewpoint about this, I’m going to describe the organization of the chapter in this book where Jensen discusses theories about the cause of the IQ difference:

1. An analysis of the correlation between races and genetic groups: 12 pages (from genetics.)
2. Correlations between IQ differences and genetic distance: 6 pages (genetics + psychometrics)
3. Race, intelligence and brain size: 5 pages (neurology)
4. G and g loading: 2 pages (psychometrics)
5. IQ heritability within and between groups: 13 pages (psychometrics + genetics)
6. IQ regression towards the mean: 3 pages (psychometrics)
7. Pseudo-race groups and IQ: 1 page (psychometrics)
8. Explanation of how to test hypotheses about the cause of the IQ difference: 2 pages (psychometrics)
9. Structural equation modeling for mental traits: 8 pages (psychometrics)
10. Transracial adoption and IQ: 6 pages (psychometrics)
11. Racial admixture and IQ: 9 pages (psychometrics)
12. IQ and myopia: 2 pages (psychometrics)
13. Environmental effects on IQ: 9 pages (psychometrics)
14. The interaction of race, sex, and ability: 2 pages (psychometrics)
15. Non-genetic biological factors affecting IQ: 9 pages (psychometrics)
16. Theories about the cause of the IQ difference: 7 pages (psychometrics)

Jensen’s analysis of this is 96 pages long. 60 of those pages (63%) are taken up exclusively by psychometric evidence, and another 19 (20%) are taken up by evidence that combines psychometric data with evidence from other fields. If we split this 20% halfway between psychometrics and the other fields from which it uses data, we get a total of 73% of Jensen’s cited evidence for this theory coming from psychometrics. Because Jensen is the most prominent proponent of the hereditarian hypothesis, I think it’s reasonable to assume that his treatment of this evidence is representative of the overall proportions of fields from which this theory uses data.

Reubzz, you can move this comment if I’ve posted it in the wrong place (Right place, just make responces in area of your statement so mediators can see each person's opinions - Reubzz (talk)). --Captain Occam (talk) 02:44, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

We should try to take a look at this from an objective as possible approach. This discussion about what in the book covers what topic is subjective without any real definite brightline. It would be preferred if the ideas in the book, the evidence to support it and the like, are used in discussion rather than the percentages of information in the book. Reubzz (talk) 03:16, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

It’s a pretty long book. Even just considering this one chapter, I think 96 pages’ worth of ideas and the evidence for them is more than I can summarize in a talk page comment, particularly after you’ve expressed concern about the length of some of our earlier comments. --Captain Occam (talk) 03:43, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, if you want to read this chapter and decide for yourself how much of the evidence is from the field of psychometrics, I've found it online here. It’s missing most of the references / end notes and all of the diagrams, but other than that (as far as I can tell, from briefly glancing over it) it appears to be the entire chapter.

Whoever uploaded this chapter there probably violated Jensen's copyright on it by doing so, but I suppose it still might be useful for the purposes of this discussion. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:27, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Another good general audience presentation is the 2002 Miele book "Intelligence, Race, And Genetics: Conversations With Arthur R. Jensen". It covers all the major points and does so in a succinct manner. It also provides a brief but comprehensive response by hereditarianism to the most popular environmentalist claims (something missing from the current article). Perhaps this book is also one which could be considered as representative. --Aryaman (talk) 05:50, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Statement by DJ

re: Xavexgoem's question. I would characterize Sternberg and Nisbett as anti-hereditarian as they take an affirmative stance that hereditarians are wrong. Flynn is essentially anti-hereditarian also. Others are more strictly non-hereditarian as they are also non-environmenalist. Note however that, for example, Nisbett (2009) and Sternberg et al (2005) disagree on many fundamental points. Each is nearly as different from one another as they are from Jensen (1998). They only happen to agree on the answer to the question: what's the contribution of genetic factors to group differences?

re: Multiple disciplines. This is mostly about psychometrics and psychology. Behavioral genetics, for example, is mostly practiced by psychologists (e.g. Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr.) for the reason that phenotype measurement requires specialization. There are prominent individuals from fields other than psychology, but no other field really owns this topic as does psychology and in particular "individual differences" psychology (for which "psychometrics" is often used as a synonym).

re: how much is enough? Enough to cover the data and arguments relevant to the hereditarian view just as we cover the variety of non-herediarian views. This can be accomplished by taking a data/argument-centric view rather than a conclusion-centric view. It likewise should be mentioned as one of many views where summaries are presented, such as the lede. This approach requires that we establish which particular data/arguments to include rather than whether to include hereditarian opinions or not. These topics are likely the most pro-hereditarian and thus the most controversial with regard to inclusion:

• the implications of within group heritability for between group heritability
• Spearman's hypothesis and reaction time data
• adoption and early intervention programs
• structural equation modeling of between group differences
• regression equations among siblings
• brain size and other biological correlates
• evolutionary models (see the January issue of PAID)

That order is loosely in order of increasing controversy. The downside of using a topic-centric approach is that no scholar's view is entirely clear at any one point unless more space is spent on that too. --DJ (talk) 08:07, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

"but no other field really owns this topic as does psychology" If you mean that the overwhelming majority of publications on the topic are by psychologists, I agree with you. But I am not at all sure that this is the proper criteria for deciding hat disciplines are relevant. For example, I would expect geneticists (whether in biology or physical anthropology) to know a lot more about heritability of anything including intelligence, than psychologists. Moreover, the fact that very litle research is done under the rubric of a particular discipline does not mean that members of that discipline are not well-suited to comment and it does not mean that members of that discipline have not commented. We need to acknowledge that quantity does not necessarily indicate quality. Einstein published four important articles in his life, and those four changed physics as we know it. It is possible that members of a discipline have not published a lot on this topic because of what their expetise tells them. It is possible that they publish just a little because everyone in the discipline agrees that what they have publsihed ends discussion of the matter. This is why I say that we have to establish first what diferent disciplines claim expertise is, and what they recognize as significant, and what journals or other venues for publication they consider reliable. For example (this is a similar but different topic because I don't want to bias this particular discussion - I really am trying to keep my views on race and intelligence to myself and just make suggestions about how to resolve the dispute) there has been a lot of stuff published by biologists on sociobiology. Since this approach claims to explain cultural phenomena, you'd expect anthropologists to publish a lot on sociobiology too. I know of thre anthropologists who at specific times were influenced by sociobiology (Lionel Tiger, Robin Fox, and Napolean Chagnon) but they have not published a lot that is sociobiological. Why? I think that it is because Marshall Sahlins wrote one very short book lambasting sociobiology as it applies to humans. Along with a volume edited by Ashley Montague, this one book was seen by most anthropologists as ending the debate on sociobiology. Now whenever someone (e.g. a student0 asks about sociobiology, they are simply told: read Sahlins' book. I am not saying one side is right or wrong. I am saying that biology and anthropology are equally invested in sociobiology, and that most anthropologists feel that one book said all that needs to be said on the matter. This is a case where many (we do not have to say all) people consider wuality to be distinct from quantity. My only point is that quantity of publications is not always an indicator in (1) how much one discipline feels work by another discipline is relevant to their own work, (2) how much one discipline feels it has expertise over the subject matter addressed by anothe discipline, (3) what one discipline thinks about research done by another discipline. Quantity alone is not sufficient to interpret what is going on. You actully have to read book reviews and other work to understand why there is a striking difference in how much as been published, what the difference means. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:26, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

In this case, I think we do justice to these more tangentially related topics, such as the meaning of race or the sociobiology debate, by including short summaries with pointers to related articles and making necessary assumptions (WP:MNA). That also allows us to avoid the difficult (WP:NOR) task of synthesizing (WP:SYN) a diffuse conclusion.

Else we need quotes like this to work with:

The problem is that presenting an argument based on poor-quality data, especially on such an emotional issue as racial differences, biases general acceptance of stronger findings supporting the argument. Gottfredson (1998, 2005) has correctly pointed out that findings of racial influences on intelligence are deeply disturbing to many social scientists who are then motivated to attack reports of differences. The use of measures that clearly violate construct validity, or that are obtained in a methodologically inappropriate way, provides the attackers with ammunition. The problem is not that there will be an effect on the beliefs of specialists in the field. The problem is that other psychologists, including textbook writers, may propagate the belief that all studies on a topic are flawed because certain highly publicized ones were. (Source: Hunt and Carlson 2007, p 202, emphasis added)

--DJ (talk) 17:42, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Addendum #1: I continue to prefer the data/argument-centric approach to NPOV accounting. However, if the head-count approach is going to be considered, then I think we need to consider that the anti-hereditarian POV is not endorsed by the apex sources in this field (those with the highest reliability, most implied neutrality, most diverse inbound citations, etc.), and that there are a large number of anti-hereditarians who do not reject the plausibility of the hereditarian view, but rather interpret the data as leaning against it. For example:

• "If group differences in test performance do not result from the simple forms of bias reviewed above, what is responsible for them? The fact is that we do not know. Various explanations have been proposed, but none is generally accepted." -- Neisser et al 1996 -- multi-author study requested by a professional organization -- no support for either view
• "There is no definitive answer to why IQ bell curves differ across racial-ethnic groups." -- Gottfredson 1994/1997 -- 52 total signatories, requested by a national newspaper and reprinted in the journal Intelligence
• "Some laypeople I know – and some scientists as well--believe that it is a priori impossible for a genetic difference in intelligence to exist between the races. But such a conviction is entirely unfounded. There are a hundred ways that a genetic difference in intelligence could have arisen--either in favor of whites or in favor of blacks. The question is an empirical one, not answerable by a priori convictions about the essential equality of groups" Nisbett 2009 -- anti-hereditarian on the a priori plausibility of the hereditarian view
• "[Jensen] challenges social scientists who believe in an environmental explanation of the IQ gap between the races to bring their hypotheses forward. Given his competence and the present state of the social sciences, the result is something of a massacre..." Flynn 1980 -- a prominent anti-hereditarian on the historical imbalance of data and arguments in favor of hereditarianism (and, of course, it's a priori plausibility).

Likewise, in the 1980s survey, the second most common response, ahead of the environmentalist view, is "do not believe there are sufficient data to support any reasonable opinion". From this and more recent publications I think we can conclude that shades of "do not know" is actually the most common opinion of informed experts speaking neutrally rather than advancing a new hypothesis. It should be clear that holding this opinion requires not being convinced of either hereditarianism or environmentalism. It should also be clear that limiting discussion of pro-hereditarian data/arguments implicitly limits discussion of this view as well, which is clearly not acceptable per WP:NPOV. --DJ (talk) 17:26, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Addendum #2: Alternative suggestion for a next step: work on the lede. Have each interested editor or group of editors present a proposal for the lede. For example, see Talk:Race_and_intelligence#New_Intro.3F and Talk:Race_and_intelligence#The_opening_sentence. --DJ (talk) 03:52, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Mathsci

The fact that somebody writes a lengthy tract to support their point of view does not mean that a wikipedia article should give WP:UNDUE coverage to that view. Citation counts or articles in the media cannot be used as justification. Gottfredson's list of supporters for the hereditarian viewpoint was in fact countered by a list of a similar number of academic anthropologists. Once the subject has been identified as a controversial minority view, even amongst academic psychologists, it is inappropriate for a WP article to represent it as anything else. It also seems completely unreasonable to label eminent academics that have criticized the hereditarian viewpoint as being in an "opposition camp". They are just "expert commentators". Nicholas Mackintosh and Richard Nisbett work in the area of psychometrics and are therefore in a position to comment, although this might be tangential to their principal areas of research and the comments might have been requested by journal editors (e.g. for book reviews). Since many of the explanations suggested by psychologists for the hereditarian point of view involve areas outside their expertise such as anthropology, sociology, evolutionary biology, genetics and statistics, extreme care must be taken. This is one of the key points made by commentators. There is no dispute that there are genetic and environmental factors influencing scores in IQ tests. However, that is not the same as the connection being discussed between race, whatever that is, and intelligence, whatever that is. The lists of factors compiled above by wikipedia editors suggest that they are acting like amateur psychologists/anthropologists/geneticists/statisticians. It's not up to WP editors to do that kind of WP:SYNTHesis or involve themselves on talk pages in that kind of debate: that is why we use sources, without adding further comment. In writing an article about a controversial, inconclusive and poorly studied topic (at least internationally), the most we can say is that it is controversial, inconclusive and not much studied in academia. Quite a lot can be written in the article about the historical debate in the USA, but not so much about any underlying science.

Just as a reminder of the controversy and charges of flawed scientific methodology, here is the conclusion of a book review from 2006 of Richard Lynn's book "Race Differences in Intelligence" by M. Henneberg in the Journal of Biosocial Science:

This book is a frightening example of how an intelligent European author with good skills of academic presentation can argue any case by selectively ignoring vast areas of research on the roles of individual biological variation, cultural traditions and biases in psychological testing, and by creating conceptual entities from unreliable observational phenomena. This is dangerous because, in the past, similar arguments have confirmed racist political and layperson attitudes, and at their extremes resulted in the holocaust and apartheid.

For these reasons, I think that only a short summary of one or two paragraphs is required for this minority view. It should be accompanied by a brief mention of and reference to criticisms, for example from the appendix in the 2009 book of Nisbett. Mathsci (talk) 11:00, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

“It also seems completely unreasonable to label eminent academics that have criticized the hereditarian viewpoint as being in an "opposition camp". They are just "expert commentators". Nicholas Mackintosh and Richard Nisbett work in the area of psychometrics and are therefore in a position to comment, although this might be tangential to their principal areas of research and the comments might have been requested by journal editors (e.g. for book reviews).”

Why do psychologists such as Nisbett and Mackintosh deserve to be considered “expert commentators”, but eminent proponent of the hereditarian viewpoint don’t qualify as that? You haven’t pointed out any difference between people such as Mackintosh and Nisbett who oppose the hereditarian position and people such as Eysenck, Jensen and Cattell who support it, apart from the fact that the former are more numerous and that you agree with them. Mackintosh and Nisbett certainly don’t have any qualifications that the three supporters I mentioned don’t. Eysenck, Jensen and Cattell are psychometricians also, and all three of them are on Haggbloom 2002’s list of the 20th century’s 100 most eminent psychologists. Haggbloom’s review lists Eysenck as the 13th most eminent psychologist of the 20th century, Cattell as the 16th most eminent, and Jensen as the 47th most eminent. Nisbett and Mackintosh didn’t even make the list.

It sounds to me like you’re using the no true Scotsman fallacy. The only thing that makes Mackintosh and Nisbett “expert commentators” any more than Jensen, Eysenck and Cattell are is the fact that they agree with the viewpoint that you approve of. If you define what makes an "expert" as being based on whether a person agrees with you, then of course you can assert that none of the people who disagree with you are experts, but that doesn’t prove anything. --Captain Occam (talk) 12:53, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

They are distinguished academics. Firstly they have both won prestigious prizes; secondly they have both been elected to the highest scientific honour in each of their respective countries, namely the Royal Society and the National Academy of Sciences. Probably this is fairly rare for academic psychologists (see the list below). It's unclear why the stature of the two highest scientific societies in the UK and the USA is being disputed. Neither of the academics I mentioned has experienced controversy in their career as far as I am aware, for example extremely adverse book reviews. Quite the contrary. Neither of them has had to seek funding from non-governmental sources. It would be hard to imagine more expert commentators. Here is an example of another psychologist recently elected FRS Fergus Craik [13]. I haven't checked if he's on the Haggbloom list of psychologists. Membership of the National Academy of Sciences was one their three main qualitative criteria. The report was written in 2002, the same year Richard Nisbett was elected to the NAS. Here's the WP list of psychologists in the NAS. Thus they appear to be using the same sort of qualitative criterion as me, though not properly internationalized, since they did not consider the Royal Society, Academie Francaise, etc. (BTW Robert Sternberg was a past president of the American Psychological Society, another one of three qualitive criteria of the Haagbloom list.) Mathsci (talk) 15:18, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Appointment to the National Academy of Sciences is perhaps the most important honor that can be given to a scientists in the United States. Mathsci is making an important point: we need objective criteria to judging significance and reliability. Captain Occam is concerned about the [[No true Scotsman[[ fallacy - which is precisely why I suggest starting to look for sources without using hereditarian/non-hereditarian as criteria, which is why I propose instead to find out what the criteria for significant view and reliable source are for biology, cultural anthropology, physical anthropology, psychology and sociology first. For the sciences in general, membership in the NAS certainly serves as a very fine discriminator between authoritative and non-authoritative views. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:29, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Note I'm only making a statement about the two particular commentators that I've mentioned (there are plenty of others). Editors should avoid framing the article as some kind of academic dispute between two opposing camps. There is no evidence for that. The portion of the article under discussion concerns a hereditarian theory put forward by a group of psychologists and the criticisms it has received. Editors' views do not come into this; the problem is just to locate reliable sources. Mathsci (talk) 16:04, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Statement by Varoon Arya

In my opinion, making a guideline in the form of a percentage or a number of paragraphs is neither justified nor feasible. The issue is whether the results of so-called "hereditarian" research should be adequately (i.e. in a manner which is coherent and sufficent to facilitate proper understanding) represented in the article. This would not be an issue if were it not for the fact that some editors insist upon scandalizing the work of researchers such as Jensen, Gottfredson, Rushton and Lynn. We would take a point-by-point approach (similar to what DJ has suggested), and simply report on findings which are either supportive or contradictory of a particular thesis (such as the improtance of SES, the role of test bias, the correlation of within-group heritability to between-group heritability, etc.). This would allow the article to focus on the issues involved and the arguments advanced instead of polarizing the issue any more than is absolutely necessary.

Those who disagree with me will likely say that I take this position because I want the hereditarian position over- or disproportionately represented. This is not true. I think that arguments stand or fall on their own merits, regardless of who makes them, and that the issue of proportional representation is being misused in this discussion to advance a particular point of view over another. Proportional representation (WP:UNDUE) was introduced as a key point of policy to make sure that people did not inflate the representation of pseudo- or non-scientific theories like the flat-earth theory in articles about the Earth. The hereditarian position is based upon neither pseudoscience nor "fringe" research. It's simply a set of interrelated hypotheses which, when taken together, lead to a potentially controversial conclusion. To argue that, by presenting findings which support the hereditarian position, or that, by presenting findings which contradict the environmentalist position, we run the risk of violating WP:UNDUE is both intellectually dishonest and, while arguably conforming to the letter of Wikipedia policy, in stark contrast to its spirit.

The point raised by Slrubenstein and Mathsci, i.e., that we should bring in the views of anthropologists, biologists, sociologists, non-behavioral geneticists, etc. is hardly an innocent appeal to ascertain the importance of this field of research. It's an attempt to marginalize the findings of hereditarians by showing that the prevailing opinion of scientists in those tangentially related fields, as they generally reject the concept of race as denoting anything other than a social construct, agrees with those opponents of hereditarianism who actually specialize in the relevant disciplines. This would give the impression that environmentalism is the only scientifically credible view, though by dishonest means. There is no good reason not to stick to the research which has been conducted by experts in the field of psychometrics and behavioral genetics. That they sometimes make appeals to the findings of other, related disciplines is no cause for alarm, as behavioral genetics is, by and large, interdisciplinary. Any critique made by anthropologists, sociologists or biologists of psychometricians being ill-qualified to make pronouncements upon the findings of their respective fields will be applicable to all such psychometricians, regardless of their particular findings. Thus, it would do nothing to advance this particular article.

To summarize, I think DJ and Occam have made the most viable suggestions, i.e. to approach the topic on a point-by-point basis, and to present the relevant findings regardless of origin. The body of the article should discuss these central issues fairly, and "pro-hereditarian" and/or "anti-environmental" findings should not be marginalized to a single section of the article. A separate section, perhaps titled "Conclusions", could be created to discuss the conclusions particular researchers draw from the body of research which has been discussed in the main section of the article. In that section, it should be made clear that the synthesis made by Jensen, Rushton, Lynn, etc., i.e. their conclusions, are highly controversial and do not find mainstream support. It should also be made clear that the majority of experts, both within the field of psychometrics and in other tangentially related fields, hold that either only the environment can account for between-group IQ differences, or that, if there is a genetic contribution, it is so small as to be insignificant. --Aryaman (talk) 16:17, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Normal practice when writing wikipedia articles is first to locate a list of principal sources. Since no wikipedia editor is presumed to be an expert in this particular subject, that applies especially here. We can then discuss which parts of them to report on in the article, possibly with a division into subtopics. Because this is a controversial subject, we should also follow the sources fairly closely. For the hereditarian point of view, I would assume that the 2005 paper of Rushton and Jensen is the most up to date review. In a similar way, once we've reported on a contentious theory, we should then follow this presentation with a report on any criticisms, again from a representative list of sources. So my suggestion is not to make lists of topics, which will probably be counterproductive and a method of generating futile debate on talk pages; we should instead make a list of the principal most up to date sources and then proceed from there. I'm not particularly attached to a number of paragraphs or a percentage. I am in favour of separating out contributions and ideas from particular individuals, like Flynn, rather than the present discursive and slightly rambling presentation. (My own role, as always, will just be in helping to locate and possibly make available sources where the need arises.) Mathsci (talk) 16:56, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not against collecting a list of representative sources. In my opinion, the Jensen & Rushton paper is a good one, though it could certainly be supplemented (for example, by Jensen's "g Factor"). If we can agree on that, great. When it comes to making use of the texts on that list, I'm not sure we see eye to eye. I see significant advantages in breaking the discussion in the article down to the level of individual issues upon which many scholars have published findings. One advantage is that it would help new contributors understand where they are to add new material. Another is the possibility of expanding one or more such sections as more research findings become available, and when/where it is justified, splitting overly large sections into new articles with meaningful, non-POV-fork titles. For example, a great deal has been written on the issue of racial/class/cultural/content bias in IQ testing, and this might eventually prove worthy of its own article. It's notable, a number of experts have written about it, and important conclusions have been drawn. If we frame this article around the findings of particular pieces of literature, such expansion becomes nearly impossible, and it becomes very difficult to filter criticism directed at particular arguments from criticism directed at conclusions, at scholars, at sources of funding, etc. --Aryaman (talk) 18:14, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Good. I think in this particular case we should start with Jensen and Rushton's 2005 paper. My suggestion, which might sound odd, is that Ramdrake or T34CH writes the summary (including details from any extra sources cited there). Then Varoon Arya or Captain Occam writes a summary of the criticisms. We can then proceed to consensus from there. My basic point is that any wikipedia editor should be capable of writing an accurate summary, even if in RL they might possibly disagree with it. That's how wikipedia works. Mathsci (talk) 23:06, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm willing to assume that you do not intend to condescend, patronize or appear overly pedantic with that suggestion, so I'll go along with it if doing so will assuage your fears of manipulation or POV-pushing. But let's get the list of literature ready first, ok? --Aryaman (talk) 23:24, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

We can proceed, but can you please refactor or reformulate the statement above to remove any kind of personal remarks and show your good faith? Many thanks, Mathsci (talk) 00:08, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

That is me assuming good faith, Mathsci. Perhaps you think your suggestion could not come across in a highly condescending fashion, e.g. as implying that neither I nor Captain Occam are capable of summarizing the Jensen & Rushton report in a neutral manner, and that we need to be taught a lesson in "how Wikipedia works", with you as our guide. You've also assumed you know what our personal views are regarding this matter, though I feel quite confident that you don't know mine. That in itself could be seen as a kind of personal attack. But, enough. Like I said, I'm willing to assume that this is not the case, but I did want to remind you that your comment was not nearly as unoffensive as you probably intended it. If that represents a fracture of the groundrules, I suppose it's my place to apologize for taking offense. So: I apologize. As it bothers you, I'll strike my previous comment out. Fair enough? --Aryaman (talk) 00:27, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

PS: While we're discussing this, I would prefer to defer my part in the above suggestion to DJ, as I have no qualms in admitting that he's better at summaries than I am. He has done an excellent job so far, and he also has better online access. (I do almost all my literature research the old way - a personal preference.) --Aryaman (talk) 00:42, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

←Thanks for refactoring. I think the right way of viewing this is what would happen when adding a section on critical reception in an article on a book. The correct thing to do is normally to find all available reviews in academic journals (and possibly elsewhere) and then prepare a summary with citations. Both positive and negative criticisms should appear when they exist. I think I prepared the book reviews in the section Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations in the BLP of Richard Lynn. Any editor theoretically should be capable of making a summary given the sources. Other editors can later comment on how accurately the summary matches the sources and suggest modifications if necessary. Mathsci (talk) 09:01, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Please only respond to each other's comments through explainations of your opinion and ways to group them together to reach mutual understandings. I am sure both Mathsci and Varoon Arya are only assuming good faith. Please stick to the content, not the contributor, or I will replace it with the indication of a personal attack as specified in the groundrules. Reubzz (talk) 00:39, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Re: T34CH's latest comments: I'm certainly not claiming that we should "ignore" everything but the results of psychometricians. But it should have a subordinate and/or prefatory role in the article. See WP:MNA.

As an example, the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, in their statement "Biological Aspects of Race", write:

Physical, cultural and social environments influence the behavioral differences among individuals in society. Although heredity influences the behavioral variability of individuals within a given population, it does not affect the ability of any such population to function in a given social setting. The genetic capacity for intellectual development is one of the biological traits of our species essential for its survival. This genetic capacity is known to differ among individuals. The peoples of the world today appear to possess equal biological potential for assimilating any human culture. Racist political doctrines find no foundation in scientific knowledge concerning modern or past human populations.

If this is the kind of statement we're discussing, I have no problem with including this information, provided it will satisfy the concerns of other editors, and provided it is allowed to stand exactly as it is written in the actual statement. (I add that last caveat because I recently discovered a badly mangled and clearly OR version of this statement in the Race article.)

Also, I would be surprised if any proponent of the hereditarian model, most of all Jensen, has ever claimed to provide "conclusive evidence". He's a scholar with controversial views, not a crackpot. Where are these claims regarding Jensen coming from, anyway? Perhaps actually reading Jensen's work would help dispel some of the misconceptions currently in circulation and get us back on track. --Aryaman (talk) 22:05, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

On widening the scope regarding the kinds of experts consulted

I'll make one last attempt at explaining my view on this issue, and then leave it up to the mediation process and the other editors to decide how we shall proceed.

Let us take the example of heredity. If we want to obtain a non-controversial definition of heredity, as well as explanations regarding how it is determined for human traits, it is probably best to turn to standard works on genetics. Provided doing so does not represent a violation of WP:MNA, I'm fine with including such information if it helps the reader understand the topic.

If, however, we want to discuss actual measurements of the heritability of a specific trait - in this case, intelligence - in a particular population, how can we do so without turning to the results of those who have conducted such studies? Disregarding whichever specific background a scientist may have, any research conducted on the heritability of intelligence in a population is relevant to the discussion of the heritability of intelligence in this article. If I haven't made that sufficiently clear before, I apologize. If including information from geneticists - or anyone from any discipline - who have not conducted research on the heritability of intelligence in populations can somehow improve this article's discussion of the heritability of intelligence, I'd like to know how. --Aryaman (talk) 18:11, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

First, you are showing bad faith by referring to this as "widening the scope of the article" when several people have regulaqrly insisted on looking to phyciscal anthropologists and biologists who do research on race and heredity as experts on race and heredity for about as long as the article has existed.

Second, you ask how adding maerial from geneticists would help. here is how: several pulished experts have said that pscyhologists - including those you refer to as the onces who have done research on the heritability of intelligence - have misused the concept of heritability. This makes there view highly relevant to the article, and it is in the area in which they have expertise: what is the concept of heritability, what does it measure, how can it be used, and how has it been misused? We are obliged by NPOV to add this material and really, Arya, don't you see how anything that further educates people about basic science is a way to improve an encyclopedia article on a topic that provides scientific research? How does it not improve the article is what I am dying to know! Slrubenstein | Talk 18:42, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I have to ignore your comments on whether or not I'm showing "bad faith", as I can't well respond without being accused of breaking the groundrules of this mediation.

As I said: "Disregarding whichever specific background a scientist may have, any research conducted on the heritability of intelligence in a population is relevant to the discussion of the heritability of intelligence in this article." If the geneticists you refer to have conducted such research, then, as should be obvious, I'm in favor of including their findings. I've also said several times that any pertinent and qualified criticism of psychometricians' work needs to be included. Either we're talking past each other, or one of us refuses to agree with the other as a matter of principle. That's not intended as a personal attack. But I'm at a loss as to why I'm being consistently misunderstood by select users. --Aryaman (talk) 19:22, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I was trying to answer this question: "If including information from geneticists - or anyone from any discipline - who have not conducted research on the heritability of intelligence in populations can somehow improve this article's discussion of the heritability of intelligence, I'd like to know how." Now you point out that you had previously written, "I've also said several times that any pertinent and qualified criticism of psychometricians' work needs to be included" as if this should be be taken to include geneticists who are experts on heritability but who have not conducted research specifically on inheritance. I am sorry that I misunderstood you. If you are now saying that criticisms of psychometricians from experts (on genetics or on race, for example) from other disciplines will improve the article, I apologize and strike out what I just wrote. Given that you accept criticisms from scholars from other disciplines even from people who have not done research on heritability of intelligence, I have to say Arya, I do not understand the question you asked. Mediator: this right here may be a great example of the kinds of breakdowns in communication that have prevented the article from moving forward. Perhaps right here is a place we could use your help mediating. Can you help Arya explain to me why he asked that question, given that he just said he views of experts, even if they have not conducted research on the heritability of intelligence, is acceptable to him? Mediator: can you help Arya understand how I thought I was answering his question? Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 21:24, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe both parties in this immediate discussion are doing the best they can to be acting in good faith. I was actually just about to come to this conversation and make a reminder to focus not on the individual, but on the argument. I have been a bit confused about this specific point - whether to include studies and data from sources that did not directly cover the issue of "race and intelligence". I am having trouble myself understanding where Varoon Arya stands on this. Varoon (may I use that for short?) do you favor information from any discipline included in the article as pertaining to the controversy, even if that study did not directly base the question on race and intelligence? If yes, then what information would fall under that, and if no, then please clarify your stance. Slrubenstein, is it correct that I take from your statement that you would oppose information being included if it didn't directly answer the issue of race+intelligence? Lastly, both parties, remember again to focus on the issue at hand - do not force a breakdown in communication. Just cool down (maybe take a stroll outside your office/room, etc.) and rethink your statement you are about to publish to make sure you aren't making a shadow-swipe at someone. Any specific concerns, you can always hit me up a message on my talk page. Cheers! --Reubzz (talk) 21:40, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

First, let me say that I agree 100% with Ramdrake's characterization, below, of the difference between Varoon's approach and his. I agree with Ramdrake's approach; I understand Varoon's approach but think it will have the effect of institutionalizing one interpretation of the conflict, and will not really resolve the conflict (i.e. part of the conflict is over how to understand the conflict, I mean among editors). Reubzz, to answer your question I am a strong believer in WP:SYNTH. The best way I could answer your question is with two hypothetical examples: (1) one source makes certain claims about the heritability of intelligence; another source makes claims about the concept heritability, without mentioning how it has been used in debates over intelligence; I use sourse two to criticize source one. I would oppose this kind of edit as violating SYNTH. (2) one source makes certain claims about the heritability of intelligence. Another source has NEVER done any research on race an intelligence, or indeed any research on intelligence, but is an expert on human evolution or population genetics and makes claims about the concept heritability, and then mentions that the concept has been misused in debates over intelligence; I use sourse two to criticize source one. I would favor this kind of edit, I think it complies fully with our policies. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:08, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Reubzz and everyone, I believe my previous comment here becomes most germane: I have this suspicion that Varoon was seeing this article as documenting the "environmental vs hereditarian debate", whereas myself (and possibly a few others) were seeing it as "race and intelligence as a field of study". If so, I would strongly recommend we discuss this element of the scope of the article first, as I must admit varoon is right in the first case, and I would dare say we're right in the second case. We all just need to agree on the scope of the article first.--Ramdrake (talk) 21:47, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Varoon, is Ramdrake's charachterization of your view correct? Reubzz (talk) 21:51, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think it is. As we've been discussing on our respective talkpages (I wanted to make sure I understood Ramdrake correctly before proceeding), it seems we're largely talking past each other because we have fundamentally different views about the scope of this article.

It has been my assumption from the beginning that this article should discuss the results of psychometrics in relation to the issue of racial differences, i.e. the potential correlation between "race" and "intelligence". That's why WP:MNA figures pretty large in this article for me. When I read "race and intelligence", I naturally assume the data source will be primarily from psychologists and behavioral geneticists. I don't expect to find the views of anthropology, biology, sociology, or any other discipline, really, because I expect the Race article to cover the mainstream scientific view on any anthropological, biological, or sociological relevance of the concept. That's not a demand on this article - that's simply how I view the subject. If anyone cares to go back over my comments, I think they make sense when seen from this perspective. And, if I look back over the comments of Slrubenstein and Ramdrake with the idea in mind that they are assuming something fundamentally different about the scope, then I can see that their suggestions make sense as well.

Thus, provided Slrubenstein agrees, and provided I've characterized Ramdrake's observation correctly, then I fully support first determining exactly what the scope of this article should be, as well as the related issues of whether the title needs to be tweaked, and whether there needs to be an article which focuses exclusively on the primarily psychometric debate between hereditarians and non-hereditarians (similar to Creation–evolution controversy).

Also, if this really is the primary source of our conflict, then I would like to offer a full apology to both Slrubenstein and Ramdrake for any past grievances which might have arisen due to this misunderstanding. --Aryaman (talk) 22:12, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate that a lot - I often felt you were trying to be reasonable even when I found myself very frustrated about the possibility of reasoning things out with you. I am sure you felt the same way and I would be glad indeed if we now have clarity about this matter and can move beyond. And yes, given what you say the scope of the article is the key. I would just add that for social scientists "context" is always an issue; would anyone question that research on race and intelligence (even narrowly defined) is motivated by policy questions? That is not far from politics. How much of this context is relevant? All of this is at issue in the "scope" question. Slrubenstein | Talk 22:25, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I'll answer Ramdrake's question. The article has always between about the debate, mainly in the USA, concerning the possible correlation between race, whatever that is, and intelligence, whatever that is. The term "race gap" is one that has been applied in the USA to differences in average scores in IQ tests between self-identified population groups. The matter has a long history and has played a role in government policies in the USA. Various explanations have been put forward for these differences in scores and whether the averages have been changing in time (the "Flynn effect"). More recently a small group of psychologists has put forward a hereditarian theory, sometimes in books aimed at a general audience. This theory has used ideas from psychometrics, genetics, anthropology, evolutionary biology and statistics. It has been criticized in journal articles and in commissioned book reviews by experts in these areas. Some attempts have been made, particularly by Lynn, to extend the statements about "race gap" to the whole world population, in particular to sub-Saharan Africa; in this case, experts in psychometrics and other disciplines have pointed out, in commissioned book reviews and elsewhere, that Lynn's approach involved flawed scientific methodology, manipulation of statistics and the paucity or lack of controlled measurements. Other WP articles discuss the role of heritability and environment in determining intelligence; part of this discussion has reappeared in this article, because these have been mentioned as factors that might explain the "race gap" in the USA. The hereditarian theory has not been widely accepted in the academic community and, aimed as it has been at a general readership and policy makers, has sparked controversy in the media. Mathsci (talk) 05:21, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe this is one of the most valuable posts to this page; MathSci has done a masterful job of summing up the entire situation. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:29, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

To clarify one point (I don't think I'm contradicting Mathsci when I point this out): "Hereditarian" views are by no means a "recent" development. They can be traced back to some of the first psychometricians to conduct large-scale testing in the US. Robert Yerkes, for example, developed the "Alpha" and "Beta" Intelligence Tests for use in the U.S. Army at the start of World War I. While those tests have been heavily criticized - and rightly so - for testing acculturation and not actual intelligence, they were more or less representative of the "orthodox" position at the time (Yerkes was president of the APA), and were used to inform the discussion regarding policies on immigration, eugenics and other issues. When biological positivism fell into disfavor (a trend which can be seen in multiple related disciplines, especially in the aftermath of World War II), social positivism took its place, though not completely. The 1951 UN Statement on Race is one expression of this change. Arthur Jensen's 1969 article in the Harvard Review was probably the first piece of research in recent times which, after taking the criticisms of social positivists into consideration, attempted to reformulate the "hereditarian" position. One reason why he's caught so much flak is that his position could be seen as a simple continuation of the almost pseudo-scientific approach taken in the early 20th century (think of Gould's Mismeasure of Man, for example). Thus, Jensen spends almost as much time defending himself from misleading characterizations of his work as he does conducting new research. Of course, both biological positivism and social positivism are forms of positivism, and positivism itself has come under attack by the "critical" movement which was largely inspired by Marxist thought and gained in prominence towards the end of the 20th century. It is this line of thinking which attempts to deconstruct the notions of "race" and "intelligence", and asks whether they are meaningful and/or valuable concepts.

The reason I mention this is that I believe this controversy cannot be properly characterized without an understanding of the currents of thought and the changes in ideology which have occurred in the past 100 years. Social scientists like to believe they are not hampered by the dominant ideologies of their times, but history consistently proves otherwise. The article could benefit from a careful revision of the "History" section, which should help put not only the past debate but also the modern debate into perspective. --Aryaman (talk) 16:38, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

"Social scientists like to believe they are not hampered by the dominant ideologies of their times, but history consistently proves otherwise." I agree but why restrict it, why not just say "scientists?" Slrubenstein | Talk 22:55, 19 November 2009 (UTC)