Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 28

message: quote #1 is about abolishing welfare. quote #2 and #3 are predictions about forseen negative outcomes. some more description about what exactly is being criticized about what H&M said might help tighten this up. remember to put page numbers on quotes. --Rikurzhen 02:37, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They are warning that this will happen if their policies are not implemented.Ultramarine 03:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  policy implications 

message: Err... Archive, anyone?--Ramdrake 22:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: archive at will. if we want something, we'll fish it out. --Rikurzhen 23:45, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Archive 24 all done. Jokestress 06:18, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Archiving

message: There seems to be a move afoot to suggest to the casual reader that some scholarship is more valuable or relevant in this debate. This brings me back to something I have been saying since last year about Gottfredson's Mainstream Science on Intelligence collective statement vs. the APA's Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns consensus statement. The former is one-tenth as influential as the latter if one goes for these citation quantifications, and the oft-cited (here, anyway) Snyderman & Rothman survey is only slightly more notable than the Gottfredson piece, relative to the APA. So if we are going to heirarchize everything, we should point out the relative lack of influence of Gottfredon et al. and S&R compared to the APA piece. Thoughts? Jokestress 06:18, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure I follow, which probably means this would have an WP:NOR problem. One could argue that S&R surveys 500+ scholars, WSJ surveys 50+ and APA surveys ~10. --Rikurzhen 08:22, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this article has taken into account the hierarchy in influence between these collective statements implied by this citation analysis and by that one of the statements largely represents the official opinion of the APA; I don't see any citations that give it undue prominence. Citation analysis is a valuable quantifying tool in gauging influence, but of course isn't the only consideration, per Rikurzhen's point. Also, the APA statement probably has increased weight in the sense that the journal it was published in has a very large readership, but on the other hand MSoI probably has increased weight from it being published in one of the foremost specialist journals in its area. (This discussion was partially started by the discussion at Talk:Institute_for_the_Study_of_Academic_Racism.)--Nectar 12:05, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Another interesting statistic is that (according to LG), nobody has ever said that MSoI does not represent the mainstream consensus. On the other hand, there are several reactions to the APA report that criticised it for being biased. So (if we want to play this game) the score is 0-several. But I think it would be much more useful to identify the issues where  APA and MSoI agree (e.g., measurability of intelligence, observable gap between test scores between populations), and then present these points in this article in the same way we write about the shape of the Earth. Arbor 18:37, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: AFAIK, they only "disagree" on one point -- the cause of group differences -- and here each is conspicuously indirect (employing careful spin). MSoI reports that Most experts believe that environment is important in pushing the bell curves apart, but that genetics could be involved too. Of courese this allows signers to agree that most experts agree w/o agreeing themselves. APA says It is sometimes suggested that the Black/White differential in psychometric intelligence is partly due to genetic differences (Jensen, 1972). There is not much direct evidence on this point, but what little there is fails to support the genetic hypothesis. As Murray points out, the term "direct" before "evidence" here makes the claim so specific as to have no bite. So, materially they don't actually disagree, but they both spin the causation question differently. --Rikurzhen 19:08, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Quantifying validity

message: Policy implications is now messy. There are several problems, large and small:
# what's wrong with "argue"? i find it commonly used in the scientific literature.
# the quotes from TBC take up a lot of room, but don't seem to have any specific implications for "race", only "intelligence"
## besides In Our Hands, which calls for a direct cash-transfer program, has Murray debated Welfare since the 1996 reform?
## affirmative action seems to be the most direct thing to discuss
--Rikurzhen 18:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Bell Curve in general is about races. We should certainly point out that any policy affecting those with low IQ will affect memebers of all races.Ultramarine 18:44, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

text: But maybe we should move the Bell Curve material to a footnote, it is quite long? Ultramarine 18:52, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That would be fine. So long as we move beyond the current state: footnoting, summarizing, etc. --Rikurzhen 19:03, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Policy implications - 17 August 2006 

message: :"Is there a categorical distinction between general journals and specialist journals?"
On the face of it, no there is no distinction.  To classify The American Journal of Psychology, American Behavioral Scientist, and Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences as "generalist journals" makes no sense when compared to journals such as Science and Nature (less extreme examples make sense also).  I can imagine being able to identify the more generalist and more specialist of any pairwise comparison of two journals, but I can't imagine any classification rule existing for classifying journals as either "generalist" or "specialist".
That being said, the real question is whether:
#"Criticism of the Pioneer Fund (PF) has been limited to some general journals, and hasn't been raised in the specialist journals that deal with intelligence research regularly" is a fact, and
#(if this is true) what does that say about the status of the PF, and PF funded scientists, within the community of scientists.
Part of the methods for supporting this statement are described by one editor thusly: Journals deemed "specialist" in the field were validated using a citation analysis technique comparing the relative frequency of two words in their abstracts: target word "IQ" and control word "influence". There was no cross-check using another pair of words (such as "intelligence" and a known common word like "results").  Using "IQ" vs. "g" vs. "intelligence" deserves defending, and an explanation of this whole endevour probably ought to have a methods section, and a results section, and an introduction and a discussion, in short I think it qualifies as Original Research.  
As for what this statement would mean about the status of the FP within "science", I disagree with the unstated assumption (?) that "specialist" journals are more authoritative about their research areas than are "generalist" journals.  Journals which focus on a narrow research topic may be described as minor journals.  The most prestigious journals are also the most generalist.  This is no accident.  A paper on a specialized topic, if sufficiently important and well-done, will appear in a more "generalist" journal than a less generally relevant, or less conclusive or elegant paper on the same topic.
The second question version is:
:"Can editors decide which journals are "specialist" enough and use such decisions to assert that opinions (such as criticism) published in journals other than these is somehow less important or notable - even if the topic in question is a "meta" topic that is not ever directly addressed by any specialist journals."
Many of the same comments apply.  I just don't see how to resolve editorial debates about how to address the role of PF funding in this article.  But neither do I think that resolving this issue of what's a "generalist" or "specialist" journal holds the key to progress on the issue.  Hope this helps. Pete.Hurd 05:31, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Thoughts on RFC

message: Does it not seem obvious to anyone else that the first chart which appears mostly dark purple is, by its choice of colors, both suggestive and misleading?  Whenever there are several datums, one of which overlies the next, and the next, and so on.  The common practice is to present the overlying data in a light, transparent color.  The reason for this, it allows the data just under it to be more easily viewed.  And the next datum under the second data should be of a darker color and so on.  This allows a person to more easily observe the data such a chart presents.  Having dark purple as the overlying data is uncommon practice and exactly opposite to what any college class would tell you to do when you wish to present 4 curves each under the other. Terryeo 21:15, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You could offer to redraw it. The main goal was to avoid a skin-color/curve-color match, which could upset some people. Various attempts to redrawn the graph have been made. My last attempt is: . I'm not skilled enough in SVG to get the curves filled transparently w/o nasty artifacts. --Rikurzhen 21:19, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  To present an information on top of another information, make the bottom most information darkest in color and least transparent and make the top most information lightest in color and most transparent. Terryeo 21:40, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

text: I think the reason why is that "colors" aren't light/dark. In the original image, each of the colors appears to be of approx. equal luminosity. But it might be possible to make the top curves more transparent and the bottom curves less. --Rikurzhen 23:43, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we should leave it to Terryeo. Do whatever you think improves the graph. Arbor 09:02, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Chart, the curves, the colors, the heaviness