Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 8

message: I would like everyone to summarize as briefly as possible what they intend to do with this article. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 10:12, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
:It seems the main thing being requested on this page is that Wikipedia policy regarding no personal attacks be enforced. That would be a very simple thing, compared to this massive intervention, which seems unnecessary, and I'm not sure why it's taking place.  All that was requested by one of the users here is that Wikipedia's policy of no personal attacks be enforced, which I'm sure we all agree about. I think we should revert.--Nectarflowed T 12:33, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Mediation by Uncle Ed

message: Don't cut me up, my statement I mean. It's not here just for one individual to read. P0M
===Bottom Line moved to the top so you can stop reading if you can't tolerate my conclusions===
The hypothesis questioned in the article on [race] and [intelligence] is falsifiable, has received lots of confirmation, can be proven false if the evidence can be found, and is unfortunately framed in language that is inflamatory. The problem is not going to go away unless the hypothesis is falsified. Past attempts to find socially acceptable language for words with affectively contaminated language having failed, we are probably stuck with both the hypothesis and the language it is framed in.
===Science -- what is it? ===
====Falsifiability====
If you want a proposition (i.e., theory or even hypothesis) to be taken seriously in the world of science, it must be falsifiable. The well-known physicist Richard Feynman had a devastating put down:  "It isn't even wrong." If you say something and it turns out to be wrong at least you've eliminated a real possibility. If you say something like, "Satan has two sets of wisdom teeth," nobody can prove that you're wrong, so you can claim to be a world authority on satanic dentition. 
*The proposition, "Genetic heritage is a variable that affects the [intelligence] of so-called [racial groups]" meets the requirements in that it could be disproven.  So even though I hate the word "race" and I get queasy at the idea of actually measuring [intelligence] because I have seen surface indicators (like tests) confound my expectations so many times, I can deal with the idea that people are trying to discuss.
====Confirmation====
We gain confidence in a proposition (theory, hypothesis) the more times we test it, and especially if we discover that as we figure out where there are imperfections in our test measures we get results that come closer to the results that theory would predict.
I started out as a physics major in a major university that had one of the best departments in the country at the time. As part of freshman physics, I and the other 300 or so freshman physics students all tested Newtonian physics. We had an apparatus that zapped a thousand volts or so across a gap every 1/10 second. We put a tape with a weight on it through the gap, turned on the juice, let the tape be pulled through the gap by the weight, measured the distances between holes in the tape. Nobody's results came out exactly as Newton's theory would have it, but when you averaged class results, could you believe it? It came out pretty damned close. Surprise! Surprise! Newton was right.[
*The proposition, "Genetic heritage is a variable that affects the [intelligence] of so-called [racial groups]" has received lots of confirmation (much as I personally hate to admit it).
*Wrong, people self-proclaiming their belonging to a racial group have showed different results to IQ test. This is a falsifiable proposition. However the propositions "self-proclaiming their belonging to a racial group correspond a significative genetic difference" and "IQ test measure intelligecnce" are barely falsifiable if not unfalsifiable. Ericd 23:19, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Editor #002 (P0M)

message: ====Falsifiability====
If you want a proposition (i.e., theory or even hypothesis) to be taken seriously in the world of science, it must be falsifiable. The well-known physicist Richard Feynman had a devastating put down:  "It isn't even wrong." If you say something and it turns out to be wrong at least you've eliminated a real possibility. If you say something like, "Satan has two sets of wisdom teeth," nobody can prove that you're wrong, so you can claim to be a world authority on satanic dentition. 
*The proposition, "Genetic heritage is a variable that affects the [intelligence] of so-called [racial groups]" meets the requirements in that it could be disproven.  So even though I hate the word "race" and I get queasy at the idea of actually measuring [intelligence] because I have seen surface indicators (like tests) confound my expectations so many times, I can deal with the idea that people are trying to discuss.
====Confirmation====
We gain confidence in a proposition (theory, hypothesis) the more times we test it, and especially if we discover that as we figure out where there are imperfections in our test measures we get results that come closer to the results that theory would predict.
I started out as a physics major in a major university that had one of the best departments in the country at the time. As part of freshman physics, I and the other 300 or so freshman physics students all tested Newtonian physics. We had an apparatus that zapped a thousand volts or so across a gap every 1/10 second. We put a tape with a weight on it through the gap, turned on the juice, let the tape be pulled through the gap by the weight, measured the distances between holes in the tape. Nobody's results came out exactly as Newton's theory would have it, but when you averaged class results, could you believe it? It came out pretty damned close. Surprise! Surprise! Newton was right.[
*The proposition, "Genetic heritage is a variable that affects the [intelligence] of so-called [racial groups]" has received lots of confirmation (much as I personally hate to admit it).
*Wrong, people self-proclaiming their belonging to a racial group have showed different results to IQ test. This is a falsifiable proposition. However the propositions "self-proclaiming their belonging to a racial group correspond a significative genetic difference" and "IQ test measure intelligecnce" are barely falsifiable if not unfalsifiable. Ericd 23:19, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Science -- what is it? 

message: We gain confidence in a proposition (theory, hypothesis) the more times we test it, and especially if we discover that as we figure out where there are imperfections in our test measures we get results that come closer to the results that theory would predict.
I started out as a physics major in a major university that had one of the best departments in the country at the time. As part of freshman physics, I and the other 300 or so freshman physics students all tested Newtonian physics. We had an apparatus that zapped a thousand volts or so across a gap every 1/10 second. We put a tape with a weight on it through the gap, turned on the juice, let the tape be pulled through the gap by the weight, measured the distances between holes in the tape. Nobody's results came out exactly as Newton's theory would have it, but when you averaged class results, could you believe it? It came out pretty damned close. Surprise! Surprise! Newton was right.[
*The proposition, "Genetic heritage is a variable that affects the [intelligence] of so-called [racial groups]" has received lots of confirmation (much as I personally hate to admit it).
*Wrong, people self-proclaiming their belonging to a racial group have showed different results to IQ test. This is a falsifiable proposition. However the propositions "self-proclaiming their belonging to a racial group correspond a significative genetic difference" and "IQ test measure intelligecnce" are barely falsifiable if not unfalsifiable. Ericd 23:19, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Confirmation

message: The article is a responsible and accurate report (as far as I am competent to judge) of the state of the art, such as it is, concerning the question of whether there are genetic contributions to intelligence, and whether those genetic contributions average out when we look at human populations that have gone to some approximation of equilibrium (such as the ancient nation of humans in Australia before the outside world started to move in on them) or whether these genetically dissimilar groups (different averages for various genetic components) turn out to have  significant differences.
*The only way to defeat the assertion that some [racial] group is inferior or superior to some other group in terms of their average measured IQs is to state that idea as a scientific hypothesis, establish good operational definitions for the terms relevant to the stated hypothesis, and then dig out the facts.  
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Ed's intention was for each of us to put our positions in a block somewhere that would be left along. (I reserve the right to reword what I've said if I find it needs it.) P0M 15:39, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Implications