Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 32

message: For a long time, we have opened with an assumption about Race being biologically meaningful (or something to that effect—the bulleted assumption in the lead block). I have never liked that. (Not because I disagree. I am certain Race is biologically meaningful. I also think it is politically dangerous.) The reason is kind of subtle, and I am not sure I am able to explain it clearly enough, because there are soooo many ways to be misunderstood in this charged environment. Bear with me.
This article (according to my vision) should be about Race and intelligence. All points-of-view. Including those I disagree with, for example the viewpoint that “Race is a social construct, and all IQ differences between races are the result of environmental effects”. Environmental effects here  in the broadest sense, including nutrition (which may vary among races for cultural reasons), education (which may vary among races because of discrimination or learning attitude differences among subcultures), test bias, whatnot. For example, it is a reasonable explanation to posit that “Ashkenazi Jews are smarter than other Europeans because of a thousands-years old tradition for book learning”.
I like these kinds of arguments (even though I slowly come to understand that they aren't the full picture), and they certainly are well-published. I think this article should include them. (As it does now, and always has.) In fact, I would like them to be even more visible.
Now, such explanations are explicitly not contingent on an assumption that Race is a biologically meaningful category. And therein lies the rub. The race assumption is simply wrong. It is not the fact that all scholarly discourse about why races differ in intelligence hinges on this assumption. Not even the hereditary position assumes that races are biologically meaningful. The race assumption is made only for the explanation the hereditary correlations are concordant with the social categories of race. So only a single (albeit, I am confident, the correct) POV needs that assumption.
So I say either we remove all other POVs than Rushton–Jensen from this article (which I would oppose vehemently), or we move the contended assumption down to where it belongs, namely to a presentation of the position "IQ is hereditary" + "The genes that cause this correlate with racial categories". As it stands now, the article opens by positing an assumption that is only needed for a single POV. (Even though this POV has strong scholarly support.)  Arbor 09:04, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you're referring to the lead block, bulleted assumption, then I agree. I disliked it previously and would welcome a correction or removal of that line. As you say, it is only required for the hereditarian hypothesis of causation. --Rikurzhen 09:08, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arbor's issue about the Race assumption 

message: there's now a section titled "U.S. Black-White gap closing". this is the appropriate place to describe the debate that fryer and levitt have contributed to. in addition to their paper on babies, they have several papers on K,1,2,3... graders. the implications of these data for the cause of the gap should be weaved in -- as other data is -- rather than appended. notably, different authors have different interpretations. --Rikurzhen 19:08, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Their argument against the genetic explanation should be in the correct section.Ultramarine 01:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did in fact restore their argument, leaving the data described in the section above. Nonetheless, their argument needs to be blended with similar ones to document that it's a general rather than unique claim. --Rikurzhen 21:23, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  fryer and levitt 

message: * need quote to make the statement "these studies support the partly-genetic hypothesis", also, if we say "reported to" here, we should say it on every study)
Don't need a quote. They disagree about many studies, but most prominently the MTRAS. You can see this clearly by reading the reference.
:If we're going to have a statement backed up by a reference with quotes, the statement should be backed up completely by the quotes.  Paraphrasing, "People say A, B, and C" with a ref that only quotes them saying A and B, doesn't seem appropriate.  Why not just add a quote from the reference to back it up? --JereKrischel 21:26, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what you mean. The divergent interpretation of MTRAS is the most obvious, but there are many cases. For example: "There is in fact no good evidence, contrary to Nisbett (2005; and Suzuki & Aronson, 2005), that g is malleable by nonbiological variables." One side says non-malleable --> genetic; other side says mallelable --> not-genetic. --Rikurzhen 21:38, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you say non-malleable --> you are saying that ALL biological variables are genetic. I just don't see that it is the case (disease is a non-genetic, biological variable, for one).--Ramdrake 21:47, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not making this argument but describing it. However, you are missing the logic. If the only known environmental ways to affect IQ are those that directly affect biology, then this is an argument that the BW gap is due to genetic (based on the assumption that these biological-envionrmental sources of variation are not large enough to account for the entire gap). Nonetheless, the point remains that some studies were are argued to support the cultural hypothesis are also argued to support the genetic hypothesis. --Rikurzhen 21:57, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I see no such language in that section...can you quote what you mean? --JereKrischel 21:26, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Other evidence... have also been proposed to indicate a genetic contribution to the IQ gaps and explain how these arose". --Rikurzhen 21:38, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

text: The last section of the paragraph wasn't summarizing, it was mentioning the other recent study...they seem to go together better. --JereKrischel 21:26, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry, the next to last paragraph, which long was the last paragraph, was a summary paragraph. Note that this is in a sub-section of a WP:SS section. This is why I've added the Summary Style tag to the section. It is massively too big, and needs to make much stronger use of summary writing. Appending singular, unreplicated studies/theories to the end of the section is not good encyclopedia writing. New material should be integrated into the existing text, and weighted for notability and relevance. --Rikurzhen 21:38, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But you can't make it shorter and NPOV by arbitrarily removing material. What materials need to be removed need to be discussed first, and consensus arrived at.--Ramdrake 21:47, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you point to material that I removed that was important to making the point? Perhaps you should compare the concision used to describe the hereditarian argument to that used to describe the cultural arguments. --Rikurzhen 21:54, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  JKs edits 

message: I hate to archive recent discussion, but the talk page was close to 400 kb and took forever to access!  I acknowledge that this may be the most controversial article and therefore it must be very sophisticated, and I acknowledge that to accomplish this the discussion will often have to be complex and lengthy.  Much of this simply cannot be avoided.  But with all due respect may I make a few suggestions that may lead to less of a need for frequent archiving?
# when someone is obviously using this just to spout their own POV (and I am NOT pointing any fingers) do not engage, politely ask them to take it to their talk page
# if someone seems not to understand your point, give it a day and see if with a fresh mind you can explain it more clearly, rather than (as most writers do) use the act of writing to sort out your thoughts
# if two people seem to be going in circles, try to sort out and summarize as concisely as possible the remaining principal points of contention and then immediately archive the preceeding talk
# if someone believes they are repeating points they have made several times, even a long time ago, ask yourself whether the issue is adequately addressed in the article itself.  If it isn´t, figure out how to do so.  If it is, refer the interlocutor to the appropriate section in the article itself rather than rehash the arguments again on the talk page.
# PLEASE PLEASE will one of you consider doing some more archiving before September 3?  Go over this page and ask, what is really still unresolved (in terms of complying with our main policies, not in terms of resolving the fundamental debate, of course)?
I make these suggestions with a tremendous amount of respect for the principal contributors to this article.  I hope that is evident, and I sincerely hope this is constructive. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 00:52, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Your suggestions are welcome, appreciated, and I hope to do well in following them.  I know a lot of the dialog ends up seeming like repetition, and very frustrating, but sometimes it's that one phrase a couple of dozen exchanges into it that makes things click, so you really understand what the other person was intending.  I've had quite a few of those moments on this page myself, where I finally understood what the core issue was after a very long dialog.  Rikurzhen and Nectar and Arbor have all been very patient, understanding, and supportive of improving the article no matter how heated the discussion has gotten, and I do sincerely look forward to continuing our work together. --JereKrischel 01:01, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm sorry about my contribution to the talk page glut. --Rikurzhen 01:12, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  A message from your friendly archivist