Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 20

message: Richard Lynn has a new book
:Interestingly, Amazon knows nothing about this book, and Google has never heard of the publisher.  Do we really want to give so very much weight to hard-line white-supremacists who publish on vanity presses? Followup: The Library of Congress and NYC and Boston libraries also do not know this book. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 08:34, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: AFAIK it's not published yet, but I assume that this is a review work and not a work of original data collection, so at least the IQ values are probably good. We'll be able to see for sure when the book comes out. --Rikurzhen 08:39, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, it does appear that David Duke and Philip Rushton have nice things to say about it.  And the vanity press seems to follow publication of portions in the neo-Nazi journal Mankind Quarterly.  Still, it definitely makes me feel dirty even to paste those URLs. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 08:45, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why don't you write an article about your fascinating emotional response? --Scandum 03:45, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Lulu, Race Differences in Intelligence: A Global Perspective is a journal article written by Richard Lynn and published in the Spring 1991 issue of Mankind Quarterly. Notice that that article has a different subtitle than the 2005 book in question. David Duke has not reviewed the 2005 book. The David Duke "review" that you linked to is actually a reprint of the 1991 article by Richard Lynn. Your Upstream link (your third link) is also a reprint of that article. --hitssquad 14:12, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

text: It would indeed be interesting to know if the difficulty Lynn seems to have had trying to publish this with a real publisher (I assume he has at least tried), are based on the quality of the material. I hope we all here agree that the other possibility (tacit censorship) would be a lot scarier than the hereditarian hypothesis.Arbor 09:06, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's hardly censorship if legitimate publishers don't jump at the chance to publish neo-Nazi tracts.  I don't exactly see University of Iowa Press or Penguin Books pushing The Turner Diaries or Aryan Brotherhood diatribes either.  Trying to compare Lynn to any actual scientist pretty well strains at the bounds of credulity. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 05:34, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That sounds like the hyperbole that we know and love in this field. --Nectar 06:38, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

text: That David Duke link is a re-posting of an article Lynn published in Mankind Quarterly in 1991 ("Race Differences in Intelligence: A Global Perspective," rather than "Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis").  Jensen had difficulty finding a publisher for his The g Factor, which seems to suggest this isn't necessarily an a priori strike against Lynn's book.  (thanks for the links) Nectar 14:46, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  new publications 

message: IQ tests measure both g and a set of specific abilities. As an overgeneralization, you can imagine that any particular IQ test probably measures half g and half specific abilities. Raven's is an IQ test that is regarded as measuring almost all g. However, you can extract a g score from any sufficiently diverse battery of g loaded tasks using statistics. Thus, psychologists often only look at the g component of IQ tests, even though there is more to IQ than g. One reason that they do this is that the predictive validity of any IQ test is mediated almost completely by g. --Rikurzhen 19:29, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  IQ and g -- message for 68.250.8.84 

message: I find it to be pretty significant that while the US Declaration of Indepence assumes "all men are created equal," these findings suggest otherwise. I put this apparent contradiction under the "Public Policy" section.
Please respond with comments or criticism (id prefer if you messaged my talk page).--Zaorish 22:41, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "All men are created equal" is a statement of isonomy, that all persons are equal under the law, rather than that all persons possess equal traits.  (That is, there's no conflict between this and the partly-genetic hypothesis.)--Nectar 22:51, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, the Jefferson point is a bit more subtle and profound than that.  There's a sort of normative element about legal equality flowing from moral equality, and some other aspects.  But in any case, it's silly to claim that Jefferson believed that men (or even less so "persons") were all empirically equal.  Nevermind IQ (which he did not have as a concept, nor even really "intelligence" in the sense we use it now), Jefferson obviously knew that some men were tall and some short; some ill and some able; some old and some young; as a more social matter, he did not oppose that some were rich and others poor; and so on.  For that matter, he (like everyone in America then and since) was acutely and always aware that some men (and women too) had lighter skin and others darker skin. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 23:01, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You beat me to that point Lulu. Race only captures a small fraction of the physical, psychological, and genetic diveristy of the human species, a great deal of which occurs between siblings. So there's nothing special about the differences that fall along the race axis as compared to those differences that occur along the many other axes that people can be divided along. (Addendum: I suppose evolutionary psychology has shown that race may be made salient by our like/dislike sense and thus it may be privledged over, for example, the shirt color axis, but that is more about psychology than philosophy.) Sex comes to mind as possibly the most profound -- the sexes differ all the way down to their anatomy! Surely Jefferson never meant that all people were indistinguishable. --Rikurzhen 23:09, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

text: But we don't need to write some pedantic C+ freshman philosophy essay in the middle of this encyclopedia article (on a scientific, or maybe pseudo-scientific, but at least it uses the same math, topic).  No one who is able to think about g (whether a good analysis or bad), or standard deviations, or correlations between biogeographic regions and gene distributions, and so on, is going to need a high school civics lesson on the meaning of legal equality.  Or if they do, this is not the article where they should read it. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:22, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Race accounts for only a small portion of the total variation in IQ. If differences in IQ are problematic for isonomy, then it isn't a special problem for racial differences in IQ. If this is what you mean by "more basic concepts" then you are on the right track. Linda Gottfredson has written on this topic: how IQ is seen as a threat to egalitarianism. --Rikurzhen 04:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Added sub-subsection on the US Declaration of Indepence. 

message: The text added by an anon makes some errors.  For example, it's not a given that the average black American today would score better than the average white American in 1920, as the Flynn effect appears to only apply to the lower half of the spectrum (i.e. the 25 point IQ gain didn't occur in "the average American").--Nectar 18:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, yes it is a given, even if the Flynn effect were to apply to the lower half of the IQ spectrum. In 1920, the IQ gap between Blacks and Whites in the US was no more than 25 points. If the 25 point IQ gain occurred in the "lower half" of the IQ spectrum, it did occur in a large percentage of Blacks, which would have put their current average IQ above the average IQ of a White in 1920 (i.e. the gain is somewhere close to 25 points). Hope this sounds clear.Ramdrake 21:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If the scores of white Americans at the 50 percentile haven't changed substantially, with the Flynn effect ocurring mostly at the lowest score ranges and gradually decreasing from low to high, than their scores on today's tests would still be in the neighborhood of 100.  The sentence in the article bypasses this by referring to means, rather than to the average American.--Nectar 21:56, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I thought Nectar's changes were good. --Rikurzhen 18:54, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

text: One other thing -- Wicherts looked at Dutch and U.S. samples, so maybe "developed countries" is better than "U.S.". --Rikurzhen 18:57, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Rewrote the Flynn effect paragraph. I see no support for stating the BW gap is genetic, only that it a "real" gap. Ultramarine 19:19, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flynn effect 

message: Frankly, relatively little seems to happening on this article. As there are several individuals here with an interest in genetics and behaviour, this seems to be a waste of resources. I therefor suggest that we create a good article about the scientific research regarding happiness. Biological explanation, brain structures, genetics, factors in life affecting, national economic factors affecting, effect of political system, and so on. Obviously a very interesting topic and there seems to be much research. I would suggest an article called "Research on happiness" or something similar to avoid confrontation with the very unstable "Happiness" article. Ultramarine 14:45, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Let's do happiness instead 

message: "Richard Lynn's Massaged IQ Data 
Anyone who uses Richard Lynn's national IQ values should be aware that this data is "massaged"; either that, or Lynn doesn't know elementary arithmetic. Of course, I did not have time to go through all of the studies referenced by Lynn, so I manually checked his reported numbers from Buj (1981), a study on national European IQ levels, which I have personally read when writing my Greek and European IQ page.
The first column below are the original numbers from Buj (1981) taken from [1] and cross-checked against my own reading of the original paper. The second column are the numbers reported in IQ and the Wealth of Nations. Lynn rounds most numbers to the closest integer, but Italy's score is rounded down (0.8->0), Austria's score is rounded down (0.5->0), Ireland's score is "rounded" up (0.2->1), Norway's score is 1.8 lower than the real one, Greece's score is 2.4 lower than the one reported by Buj (1981). All in all, 5 errors in 19 numbers from a single study."
This makes the book valueless, except possible for postmortem studies to see how the data the was misreported and if there is a systematic bias and a deliberate fraud.Ultramarine 21:21, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think what's being said is that a previous WP editor has expressed skepticism about the reliability of this web site, not that his opinion is being treated as a reliable fact to write in an article. But again Lulu, I don't see what grounds we have to doubt Lynn's compliation of IQ scores as (1) he didn't collect them and (2) his work has been scrutinized by experts who would have noticed errors (which I take it some were found). --Rikurzhen 21:12, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is far too generous to Lynn, but from IQ and the Wealth of Nations: A review of the book in Contemporary Psychology (49 (4). pp389-395. Barnett, Susan M.; Williams, Wendy) stated: "In sum, we see an edifice built on layer upon layer of arbitrary assumptions and selective data manipulation. The data on which the entire book is based are of questionably validity and are used in ways that cannot be justified." Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:32, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I just skimmed their review and I think we cover the criticisms with the data available especially from the developing world is speculative due to limited sampling, year of testing, and varying type of IQ test used. But note that this is a review of IQatWoN not the new book. The Eq. Ghana example is thus a poor example: certainly something more relavent exists. --Rikurzhen 22:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticisms of IQatWoN

message: The article says:
:in Northern Ireland the IQ gap between Protestants and Catholics was recorded in 1984 as being as large as that between Blacks and Whites in the US ()
I thought this was interested, especially since Lynn is an author. I looked up the paper to see what their data looked like. However, I could not find any claims about IQ differences between Protestants and Catholics. I did find a difference in employment between the two of approximately 1 SD, which someone might have misread as an IQ gap of 1 SD (15 points). Can someone else check this out? --Rikurzhen 23:20, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I found this some time ago. I forget how I found it http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-inferiorIQ.htm. It links to the same paper by Lynn. Perhaps that page got it's interpretation from wikipedia, and is therefore not very helpful. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs) 00:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Great. If that can be added to the reference page than the sentence can be added back in.--Nectar 07:31, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No one here has read that book. Until that situation changes, reports of what it says are just heresay. (And the book would not be directly citable anyway. If Lynn's paper is not cited directly, it would have to be cited as a cite in Ciaran Benson's paper.) --hitssquad 08:21, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This getting more and more ridiculous. Many referenced statements are now selectively deleted. This article has now no longer any resemblance to reallity. Ultramarine 12:16, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Even a NPOV template is deleted.Ultramarine 12:22, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The template referred to an article, not a section. After Nectar moved it to a section, I was going to change it to the section template but found there was no section template that allowed commentary insertion (so changing it would have deleted your commentary). --hitssquad 13:38, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Where is the Wikipedia policy that one must give evidence that one has read a particular source? Source given, deletion of material makes Wikipedia a soapbox.Ultramarine 13:48, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am unable to accurately paraphrase something if I do not know what it says. --hitssquad 14:14, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is perfectly acceptable . According to your argument, it is forbidden to quote for example a a review article. I could state that quoting material from their trade book is forbidden if you do not give evidence that you have read the original studies. Ultramarine 14:21, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Huh? The article linked I is not unknown text and is as valuable as their trade book.Ultramarine 14:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: in Northern Ireland the IQ gap between Protestants and Catholics was recorded in 1984 as being as large as that between Blacks and Whites in the US is a paraphrase, not a quote. --hitssquad 14:52, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: State the Wikipedia policy where this is forbidden. Anyone can (and often do) publish a trade book. There is no reason for allowing material from a trade book and not this material.Ultramarine 14:55, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am unable to accurately paraphrase something if I do not know what it says. --hitssquad 14:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No wikipedia policy, no valid reason for exclusion. Note that the book has been accused of gross errors, possible even deliberate fraud.Ultramarine 15:01, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: When you said wrong reference, were you referring to Lynn et al. 1984 or to Kangaroo? --hitssquad 15:41, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Obviously Lynn et al. 1984.Ultramarine 16:59, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. Could you tell me which research of Lynn's Ciaran Benson referred to in Jacoby&Glauberman, eds., 1995? --hitssquad 17:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Again, you are repeating yourself. I am not required to pass a cross examination, I have given a source as good as Lynn's trade book.Ultramarine 17:09, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

text: His opinion. And I have presented sources showing that the trade book is not trustworthy, grossly misreporting the actual data. Ultramarine 20:54, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What statements in this article can be attributed to misreporting in secondary sources? --Rikurzhen 20:59, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I question the inclusion of this trade book when opposing views of equal value are exluded. Violation of NPOV. Ultramarine 21:01, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess I'm missing something -- what views? --Rikurzhen 21:02, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Northern Ireland gap.Ultramarine 21:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, and so I guess there's some question whether the site is accurately reporting the facts as presented in the secondary source. My local library has a copy of The Bell Curve Debate. I can check it out the next time I'm there. Else, someone can email one of the authors, Lynn or Benson, and ask them if the site is accurate. --Rikurzhen 21:12, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Until someone do, it is as valuable as the trade book, and this view should not be excluded.Ultramarine 21:14, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, The Bell Curve Debate is as reliable as any trade book, but it appears that this site is a little loose with the facts. It's not clear to me that it's a reliable source. --Rikurzhen 21:17, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: On the other hand, it is clear to me that the trade book is not a reliable source.Ultramarine 21:24, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

text: The site verifiably makes the mistaken claims that Henry Fairchild was an author of the APA report, and that the AFQT is not considered a proxy for IQ tests.--Nectar 21:18, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Catholic-Protestant gap in Ireland? 

message: User:Drummondaka DAD did a debunking of that site a while ago: "Check Your Facts (at the Door?)."  It's not a trustworthy site for an encyclopedia to reference.--Nectar 20:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: His opinion. And I have presented sources showing that the trade book is not trustworthy, grossly misreporting the actual data. Ultramarine 20:54, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What statements in this article can be attributed to misreporting in secondary sources? --Rikurzhen 20:59, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I question the inclusion of this trade book when opposing views of equal value are exluded. Violation of NPOV. Ultramarine 21:01, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess I'm missing something -- what views? --Rikurzhen 21:02, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Northern Ireland gap.Ultramarine 21:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, and so I guess there's some question whether the site is accurately reporting the facts as presented in the secondary source. My local library has a copy of The Bell Curve Debate. I can check it out the next time I'm there. Else, someone can email one of the authors, Lynn or Benson, and ask them if the site is accurate. --Rikurzhen 21:12, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Until someone do, it is as valuable as the trade book, and this view should not be excluded.Ultramarine 21:14, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, The Bell Curve Debate is as reliable as any trade book, but it appears that this site is a little loose with the facts. It's not clear to me that it's a reliable source. --Rikurzhen 21:17, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: On the other hand, it is clear to me that the trade book is not a reliable source.Ultramarine 21:24, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

text: The site verifiably makes the mistaken claims that Henry Fairchild was an author of the APA report, and that the AFQT is not considered a proxy for IQ tests.--Nectar 21:18, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Drummond's review of that site

message: There's a familiar saying that what IQ tests measure is the ability to score well on IQ tests.  That seems like a good thing to keep in mind.  Actually, I know this is entirely anecdotal, but my little autobiographical experience casts some doubt on the "consistent lifetime results" idea.  My silly psych-grad-school enamored dad gave me a bunch of baby IQ tests... and the results differed over about 3 SDs.  Well, OK, maybe just criticize the examiner.  But if you look at my SAT vs GRE results, there's still over 1 SD difference; and the reason is pretty straightforwardly that I was trying harder on the GRE (different age, different motivation, etc)... but I certainly wasn't deliberately not trying on the SAT either, which was much lower results.  I have no interest in wasting effort on any other such standardized tests.
The thing about the absurdly low purported IQ's of various (generally African) people that Lynn purports is that we know a priori that what they are measuring is not "unitary general cognitive ability".  An average Pygmy is simply not severely mentally retarded (no matter what obfuscatory remarks editors might make about organic and inorganic causes somehow reflecting fundamentally different mental abilities, or whatever).  Of course, most of Lynn's data is just grossly fraudulent anyway (very small samples; selective use of studies advancing a conclusion; basic arithmetic errors; etc).  But I actually tend to believe that a lot of peoples would indeed get IQ scores that are clearly discordant with their "unitary general cognitive ability".
Various explanations jump out as probable, though I'm not saying any of them are citable for the article itself:
# Cultural bias in test design.  Tests that are relatively reliable among middle-class Americans are not necessarily at all meaningful among non-literate peoples with entirely different societal structures (even tests that do not per-se test verbal abilities).
# Motivational bias among test takers.  Pygmies may well care even less about the IQ test some foreign antropologists hand them than I did as a bratty 18 y.o. SAT taker.
# Expectational bias among test administrators.  You can hardly overestimate the degree to which the expectations of psychologists wind up shaping the performance of test subjects (I should dig up some stuff on this... there's some remarkable stuff where, e.g. psych grad students are secretly also subjects, and fed expectations about test results... despite "objective" design, the secondary subjects wind up peforming exactly as the test administrators are told to expect).
But again: We know the universe did not cease to exist 12 billion years ago, so we should not uncritically report some cosmological result that says it did. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 22:19, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Psychologist Edwin G. Boring invented the what the tests test quote. See Chris Brand, The g Factor. A score gap between the SAT and the GRE may be attributable to "teaching to the test." Most IQ tests do not have study guides. The rest of your concerns are addressed in Bias in Mental testing (Jensen, 1980). --hitssquad 22:31, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, and maybe my biographical SAT/GRE/childhood test gaps are attributable to the fact mercury was in ascendence in my sign when I took it (is that astrology talk, I don't really know).  Hitssquad's stipulation is actually almost exactly opposite to the facts (I went to a high school that basically "taught the SAT", like many; then spent college years not doing anything vaguely related to anything specifically on the GRE).  But sure, any conclusion you want to support can be saved by enough ad hoc excuses or rationalizations.  The real reason in my case that there was a gap was purely motivational... and it's not at all far-fetched to suppose that Pygmies (or Aborigines, or whomever) may not approach IQ tests, administered by passing anthropologists, with exactly the same motivation structure as do westerners in educational settings. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 01:38, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

text: For the San and Pygmy I just don't know because I've never read the original studies. For people in developed countries, there's no doubt. For most other populations enough care has been taken (and validity/factor structure/etc estimated) to make these IQ scores a relatively good estimate. What you should keep in mind is that 1/3 - 1/2 of some of these populations is malnourished, which appears to shave 10-15 points off IQ if it's severe. --Rikurzhen 22:44, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you take severe malnurishment into account, it starts to make some of the numbers in the 70s look vaguely plausible.  But even given that, there's something else very wrong with the data collection or aggregation for claims of human populations with means in the 50s-60s. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 01:38, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't say whether it's prima facie false or not, but (1) I deleted the San/Pygmy ref b/c they are such small/isolated groups and (2) these are groups (e.g. indigenous Australians) who are effectively hunter-gathers (which may be the cause or consequence of exteremely low IQ). --Rikurzhen 03:08, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm a bit confused that we go to lengths in this article to carefully state that IQ tests must be interpreted statistically to derive any reliable measure of g the intelligence factor, as opposed to setting-specific skill abilities, and then we present differences in IQ  as being an indication of disparate levels of intelligence between people. Can someone find analytical data that demonstrates a difference in the measured g factor between these different ethnic groups or races, however you prefer to call them? I've grown up with an understanding that a significant amount of the IQ score was culture-sensitive (ie. people could score differently based on hidden or sometimes not-so-hidden cultural bias of the test itself); in this context, I would be hardly surprised that a test devised in any given culture would rate lower IQ-wise people who do not belong to that culture. One simple way to test this would be to administer an IQ test devised say, in China to students in North America or in Europe. That's just my guess, but my guess says they score lower than they would on European or American tests.Ramdrake 21:39, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What IQ tests measure 

message: Can someone detail what statements or assumptions are disputed in the race section, or what statements they'd like to see added?--Nectar 01:42, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Meaning this tag, right? The tag says Critical studies are argued to have been excluded, and criticism is presented misleadingly. I don't see how this can possibly apply as the section is almost empty of content and what content is there consists of (1) a two sentence summary of the race article, (2) a definitional list of how racial labels correspond to the more scientifically aggreeable categorization system of biogeographic ancestry, and (3) a note about how race impacts politics in the U.S. Certainly all detail is excluded, but race is way to big to be described in anything but the most critical --Rikurzhen 03:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Race npov 

message: lulu wrote this in response to Nectar, who was asking about this tag I believe. --Rikurzhen 03:14, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Using Lynn can never conform with [[WP:RS]] 

message: [Moved from Rikurzhen's talk page]
Kamin 1995 argues the Raven's Progressive Matrices, which was used for a significant amount of the African studies, cannot be converted to IQ scores:
:The test's developer, John Raven, repeatedly insisted that results on the Progressive Matrices tests cannot be converted into IQs. Matrices scores, unlike IQs, are not symmetrical around their mean (no "bell curve" here). There is thus no meaningful way to convert an average of raw Matrices scores into an IQ, and no comparison with American black IQs is possible.
On the otherhand, all measures of human cognitive ability tend to strongly intercorrelate with each other, etc.  (I see GNXP covers Frey and Detterman 2003 that correlates SAT with IQ and RPM with SAT.)  Do you know the answer to this?--Nectar 22:39, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: AFAIK, RPM is commonly used as an "IQ test", and is the regarded as being the most g loaded of all tests. I remember that Thompson and Gray (2004) in NRN mentions RPM briefly. --Rikurzhen 22:41, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

text: This looks to be a paper that dicusses what RPM measures: Carpenter, P. A., Just, M. A. & Shell, P. What one intelligence test measures: a theoretical account of the processing in the Raven Progressive Matrices Test. Psychol. Rev. 97, 404–431 (1990). --Rikurzhen 22:45, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

text: See also Raven%27s_Progressive_Matrices --Rikurzhen 22:47, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I haven't read what Jensen has to say about Raven's but the shape of the distribution is a product of the construction of the test. The shape of the distribution of g is unknowable. Even with an non-normal distribution, it should be possible to make a Ravens to IQ conversion. --Rikurzhen 00:13, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Raven's Progressive Matrices to IQ 

message: We certainly can rule out a priori that Pygmies or Aborigines have an average IQ in the 50s-60s (if that means "general mental capability", rather than "performs on some culturally-mismatched test X").  They have rich mythological and folklore systems and traditions, elaborate ritual practices, highly tuned skills for the hunter-gatherer lifestyle they live, for the Pygmies especially, an amazingly complex musical tradition, many are highly multi-lingual.  None of this is remotely plausible for an 8-10 y.o.'s mental capabilities (which is what the purported IQ amounts to). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:59, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All we can measure is IQ, brain size, reaction time, etc. I find the 60s IQ scores plausible. If sub-Saharan Africans have IQs around 70, then anything seems plausible. None of the things you mentioned requires the ability to do complex mental operations, only rote training/memory. But I already removed the Pygmy/Bushman IQ scores on the hunch that those measurements have the greatest uncertainty. We can remove the Australian Aboriginee scores too if you suspect the same. --Rikurzhen 05:37, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What we can know 

message: A extensive review/summary/critique of Lynn's book --Rikurzhen 07:13, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Fascinating to see a discussion of Lynn's research ethics with no mention of Kenneth Owen at all... ScottMacEachern 16:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The data we need 

message: The Lynn 1991 reference near the end of Expert opinion is broken. It should be either 1991a or 1991b, but I'm not sure which one. Aaron McDaid (talk - contribs)  21:38, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Broken reference for Lynn 

message: As discussed previously, the discussion of Race is very different and POV compared to main article. I have previously mentioned many 2005 peer-reviewed articles that are critical. Ultramarine 12:46, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, AFAIK those studies aren't specifically in the race article either, but their arguments can be subsumed under the "Some scientists argue that common racial classifications are not meaningful" line. --Rikurzhen 16:50, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is certainly very different from the discussion and objections mentioned in the Race article.Ultramarine 17:53, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: At this point, I'm the proximal source of a great deal of the race article. Either you're misunderstanding or I'm ignorant of some specific point. A great deal of the detail is unimportant for this article. I could expand the section in this article to any arbitrary size, but what we have now is a nice, concise, and precise description. I have a few things that might make it better, but no time now. --Rikurzhen 18:08, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Race 

message: The article states that critics argue that "strong racist bias is involved in data selection and manipulation". How might it be possible to determine racist bias? --hitssquad 18:01, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: By citation, as in the article.  Please try to remember WP:NOR! (Kamin is a an actual reliable source, who is cited to this effect; Hitssquad's wishful thinking that Lynn met WP:RS doesn't make it so). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 18:56, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Strong racist bias is involved in data selection and manipulation" 

message: The article states that critics argue that "There are overwhelming confounding factors disregarded by Lynn". What are the confounding factors that critics claim Lynn disregards? --hitssquad 18:03, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "There are overwhelming confounding factors disregarded by Lynn" 

message: :Please, editors, do take a look at Hitssquad's edit history, as with the Mengele difflink. Other than the apologetics for the racism of Lynn and associates, many edits are quite literally Nazi apologetics and holocaust denial.  I think it puts some perspective on her/his efforts to remove any criticisms of Lynn from the article. Additional notable edits: , , , , ,  Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:32, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The neo-Nazi POV on Lynn's "research" 

message: I have nothing against "IQ skeptic" personally, in describing Kamin.  Though "IQ researcher" also doesn't seem unreasonable.  But maybe more neutral would be simply to call him a "psychologist", which is his plain academic title. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 21:15, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's important to note that Kamin has a history of criticism of IQ -- "IQ skeptic" seems like the shortest possible way to describe that. I think the same sort of qualification would be appropriate for a positive comment from Rushton, for example. IQ research makes it sound like he woudl be the kind of person to go to an ISIR (international society of itnelligence research?) meeting. If Gottfredson came out with that kind of critisism of Lynn, then "researcher" would be a good adjective for her. --Rikurzhen 22:15, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Like I said, I'm fine with the characterization.  I guess the reverter might have thought it implied Kamin doubted IQ as a measurable quantity at all, which is not true; but Kamin does doubt several aspects of IQ research (including g as a meaningfully unified factor rather than mathematical artifact, and heritability studies).  But "skeptic" is neutral enough... something like "denier" might be POV.  And someone can read Kamin's article if they want (though it looks to me like that article is in need of expansion; but presumably it will be improved with time). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 22:23, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I was the one who did the revert, based on the Wikipedia stub on Leon Kamin, but also on this reference: []. It goes to show that Kamin did some legitimate research on his own, and while he doesn't deny IQ, he is skeptic about its inheritability, whether it be individually or racially. In that sense, "IQ skeptic" doesn't really nail it, "researcher", or "psychologist" would be a far better term, I would say. Because of his doubts regarding individual genetic inheritability of IQ, I would say he stands a bit apart from mainstream, granted. Sttil, I say "IQ skeptic" is inappropriate (for the reason stated above), but I will wait for feedback as I'm definitely not intent on starting an edit war here.Ramdrake 16:41, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That Indiana U profile of him states he spends his time not as a researcher, but as a "professional reviewer and critic of intelligence studies, [criticizing the genetic argument and supporting] the environmental argument".  It lists his "major contributions" as (1) being "one of the first" to publicly question the work of Burt, and (2) critizing the genetic argument.  This seems to support the argument that he's very much on the skeptical side of the issue.--Nectar 22:43, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

text: So he is a 'heritability skeptic'? Maybe that's too much of a neologism... Arbor 08:58, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is Kamin's adjective 

message: I very much disliked the "said to be inspired by the American eugenics movement" bit when referencing the T-4 euthanasia program. Hitler and close associates specifically cited the American eugenics movement that forced sterilization upon the mentally inept as being the inspiration for their program. German translations of American eugenics journals and books were common reading amongst the Nazi party in the 30s. The wording previously used makes it seem as if it is only suggested that it is a possibility they were inspired. Whereas in actuality high ranking Nazi officials specifically said they were directly inspired by the American eugenics movement. Though my new wording may be strong, it actually communicates that this is the case.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Project12 (talk • contribs) 17:47, February 13, 2006
: I tried to reword it further, mainly for conciseness. While we are there, when last we talked about his, nobody seemed to be a fan of the sentence about extermination of Jews, since as far as we were able to determine, the Nazis didn't actually argue for the extermination of say Jews based of their lower intelligence (as opposed to the T-4 programme). So if I am reading the tenor among the editors here right, the sentence can just go the way of the Dodo. But maybe I am misjudging it. I will tentatively remove the sentence. If anybody wants to fight for it, please put it back in. We can talk about it here later. Arbor 20:12, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Your rewording looks excellent to me. --Scandum 14:44, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  T-4 euthanasia program 

message: Have there been any possible explanations for this? Particularily in regards to the genetic/culture arguments. How is it possible that, people of highly mixed genes between native Americans (average IQ of 90 in the USA, no?) and Spaniards (average IQ of 98 according to IQ/Wealth of Nations?) score around 90? Particularily when considering the hybrid vigor aspect. I don't understand why the US Hispanic average is lower than 95. Peoplesunionpro 18:41, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Possibly it's a case of outbreeding depression since hybrid vigor is rare. Most hispanics have only 10 to 20% european ancestry though I didn't look that up.--Scandum 21:59, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Just speaking off-hand, it's not a necessary assumption that indigenous North and Central Americans would have the same mean genetic IQ.  East Asians and South East Asians, for example, demonstrate varying mean IQs.--Nectar 22:15, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

text: The Lynn/RDiI puts "Native American" IQ around 87. If Scandum's admixture estimate is correct, then 98*.2 + 87*.8 = 89.2. There also seems to be a large difference between Native American scores on verbal versus spatial abilities, with much lower average verbal than spatial scores. Plus all of the other caveats one can imagine. --Rikurzhen 03:19, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  'Hispanic' USA IQ 

message: i've been trying to synchronize the inline citations and reference page. after a lot of manual fixing, i now have a lists that are probably enriched for harder things to fix than just typos. i suspect that most of these can be pretty easily fixed, but i may not be able to do all of them. --Rikurzhen 06:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  references update 

message: ==== main page ====
* Garrett_1964
* Garrett_1967
* Jensen_1985
* Lynn_1991
* Lynn_et_al._1991
* Lynn_et_al._1998
* Osborne_1962
* Osborne_1978
* Scarr_and_Weinberg_1987
I've used html comments to remove these from the text. If someone knows the source for them, they can be easily restored. I believe this makes the main page up-to-date wrt references. --Rikurzhen 23:16, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  inline citations without matching references 

message: * Garrett_1964
* Garrett_1967
* Jensen_1985
* Lynn_1991
* Lynn_et_al._1991
* Lynn_et_al._1998
* Osborne_1962
* Osborne_1978
* Scarr_and_Weinberg_1987
I've used html comments to remove these from the text. If someone knows the source for them, they can be easily restored. I believe this makes the main page up-to-date wrt references. --Rikurzhen 23:16, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  main page