Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 5

message: In response to numerous complaints I've seen on this talk page, I've rewritten the introduction and "Overview" section. The old intro was non-NPOV, did not concisely summarise the contents of the article, and mostly comprised a debate on the validity of race that's already handled (in 56 kilobytes of agony) at the article Race and needn't be discussed here. -- Schaefer 15:39, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introduction rewrite 

message: The first sentence has serious problems:
: Many researchers have claimed significant correlations between race and intelligence to exist.
First, race is not numeric and thus cannot be correlated with anything.  Second, the point is not what the researchers' claims are, but what their studies have shown; neutrally speaking, regardless of their claims, the test results show differences.  Third, "to exist" is redundant.  I am changing this to:
: Many studies of cognitive ability have shown that racial groups differ in measured intelligence.
I'm still not thrilled by this (one could probably remove "of cognitive ability," though I think the precision is helpful), but it fixes the above-cited problems.
The second sentence, 
: Such claims have sparked public debates concerning not only the truth of the claims themselves, but the validity and fairness of intelligence tests in general and extent to which intelligence is determined by genetics
also needs work.  The "truth of the claims" is a red herring, and the revision to the first sentence obviates this phrase.  Also, the broad debate is not just over genetics, but over social and biological determinants of intelligence.  Accordingly, I have changed this sentence to:
: These results have sparked public debates concerning not only the reliability of the studies and the motives of their authors, but the validity and fairness of intelligence tests in general and extent to which measured intelligence is determined by biological and social factors.
I could live with removal of "and the motives of their authors," though in my experience this is a major part of the debate for some people.
Which brings me to the 'IQ gap between races' section, which opens with a statement that Jensen was the first to claim that the black-white IQ gap was genetically determined in part.  By this point in the article, 'IQ gap' has not been introduced, and no statement about black/white differences has been made, making the Jensen paragraph look like a non sequitur.  I rearranged the section to first introduce the gap, and moved Jensen toward the bottom where explanations are entertained.
I don't know J.R. Baker's work, but this:
: John Randal Baker presented a lengthy argument in favor of innate racial differences
seems implausible.  Did he really argue in favor of racial differences?  Or did he just argue that the differences were innate?  I suspect the latter, and hope a knowledgable soul can remove the ambiguity.
--DAD 20:32, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Revisions to Intro and 'IQ Gap' 

message: "Third, many scientists believe that IQ determines income, and not the other way around."
Is there a reference to this?  It seems to completely fly in the face of, well, all known reality.  I can't even count the number of time I've met people with IQ's over 135 (sometimes even as high as 170) living in poverty and squalor, while some very financially well-off folks have trouble following a simple multi-linear syllogism (and in some cases, even the most basic uni-linear syllogism).
I might believe there was an inverse relationship between income and IQ, but not a direct one.  Put simply, a lot of successful folks are laughably dim-witted.
Secondly, in my Psych 101 class, I learned than an individual can get a score up to 20 points lower if he/she is suffering from malnutrition.
Also, I think it's a little biased to say there's no evidence of bias in IQ tests or that they remove the potential for bias.  That's ludicrous.  What if someone doesn't know what a particular word means in a particular question?  He/she might be an extremely bright and clever individual, and still end up getting a low score because of factors like this.
Now, I really have no reason to complain here, as my scores are in the low-end genius range, but I've seen a lot of very bright people get low scores (and do very poorly in school, and very poorly in the workplace), and I've seen complete morons get surprisingly high scores (and get straight A's in school, and be very successful financially).  Granted, this is the exception to the rule, but it still happens far too often to put any sort of genuine confidence in IQ scores, or academic performance, or financial success.
I think there's really only one good reason for the discrepency in IQ scores among races and income-levels:  the folks who design the test are wealthy whites who did well in school.  A poor minority who did poorly in school is at an unfair disadvantage when taking one of those things -- schools are designed to keep underpriviledged children (especially minorities) from performing well academically, IQ tests are designed to predict academic performance, the workplace favors those who did well in school.  It's a 3-pronged system of keeping ol' Whitey Morebucks at the political/academic/financial helm.
And this page has an obvious white, middle-class, honor-roll student POV --Corvun 09:42, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Your confusion stems from the difference between statistical and annecdotal evidence. The existence of counter examples is expected for a statistical phenomena where correlations are less than 1. In this case, the correlation between IQ and income is in the "moderate" to "high" range, but not 100%. One excellent reference for the income-IQ causation question is a 1998 paper by Charles Murray -- I'll find the full reference. Second, the question of "bias" is very certainly resolved. Bias has a technical meaning, which has been extensively tested. In essense, IQ tests predict outcomes equally well for whites and blacks -- whereas, if there were bias against blacks one would expect IQ would under-predict outcomes for blacks. --Rikurzhen 18:30, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)
The Murray reference is Income Inequality and IQ (PDF link).  The essence of Murray's analysis is that IQ differences between siblings predict their relative earnings, educational attainment, and occupational attainment.  Note this analysis has nothing to do with race, and explicitly controls for differences in upbringing (e.g. poor vs. rich family).  
These results directly contradict your (Corvun's) assertion that income discrepancies are due to privilege differences.  Moreover, they support the (already well-studied) notion that IQ determines outcomes, not the other way around.  Causality can only run one direction for a simpler reason: by the time income can be measured (early 20's, typically), IQ has been stable for years.  Income can't reach into the past and change IQ.
Rikurzhen's statements about test bias are consistent with the literature and with, for example, the findings of the American Psychological Association's task force report, "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns".  If that page is too verbose, consider the press-release summary: "The differential between the mean intelligence test scores of Blacks and Whites does not result from any obvious biases in test construction and administration, nor does it simply reflect differences in socio-economic status." --DAD 19:11, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: I have updated the "Unfair/biased test" section to directly quote sources.  Certainly one could have complained that the previous version included lots of assertions with few citations.  Should be fixed now. --DAD 22:02, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  IQ determines income? 

message: Can someone here please cite the source of this passage from the article: "Another example cited is the Ashkenazi Jews that came to America from Russia had an extremely low IQ as manifested in tests that were done in the US army by Carl Brigham, the creator of SAT, but later reached their present extremely high average IQ-level. Similarly, Irish, Italian and Polish immgrants in the USA are reported to have all scored about 80 pts in the beginning of the 19th century, but now tend to reach 100."  You could imagine how important this information would be in challenging the idea of IQ as something purely determined by genetics.  Perhaps you could email me. DeanoNightRider tdevine(nospam)@(nospam)gmail.com
:These early IQ test analyses are pretty much worthless. The tests Brigham was analysing didn't even provide data on which persons were Jewish. He was making silly generalizations from the scores of a population of WWI draftees, simply assuming that half of his Russian-born sample was Jewish and that the Jewish subset scores were equal to the Whites. The other study on American immigrants is almost certainly that of Henry Goddard, who used the test scores of immigrants who were pre-selected as being obviously unintelligent and tried to predict from those scores the average intelligence of the nations from which they emigrated. These conclusions only show the anti-Semitism of the analysts, and do not evidence any miraculous ascension of the Ashkenazic IQ from idiocy to brilliance during the twentieth century. Steven Jay Gould gives more detail exposing their errors and those of other early IQ testers in The Mismeasure of Man (despite how utterly wrong Gould happens to be concerning modern IQ testing).
:Wikipedia shouldn't be using such outdated and obviously flawed studies. I'll be removing them if there are no objections here. -- Schaefer 22:03, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No objections here.  Goddard's work is indeed a plague on clarity.  You could remove them, but consider rewriting and supplementing them with material similar to what you've written above, so that others can learn.  --DAD 06:26, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation request in "Caste-like minorities" section 

message: This one is great. It's a proven fact that size increase in developped countries. Thus cranial vault size increase. What else ? Did the US brain have more neuronal cells inside ? My personal advice is that a small brain in such a wide space will just get lazy :-) Ericd 16:25, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Cranial vault size ?

message: http://www.er.uqam.ca/nobel/r30574/PSY1282/C2P1.html
Rought translation of a short part :
The name given to identify "a built" is a summary of the definition.
For instance :
The term "leadership" to speak about "the capacity of a member of a group to influence the other members as for the installation and realization of the goals of the group".
This name is a summary, the name does not cover the extent of the definition. 
Ericd 23:32, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Désolé c'est en Français 

message: if we're going to talk about the flynn effect -- *cringe* -- it may need it's own section so it can be done properly. --Rikurzhen 19:57, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)
:More on this and whether the Flynn effect increases g.      Ultramarine 22:14, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "flynn effect" 

message: The Gould criticism is fully covered on the page devoted to The Mismeasure of Man.  It should not be reproduced or paraphrased on this page, any more than the contents of The Bell Curve should be.  A link is adequate.  --DAD 03:07, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gould all over again 

message: The Flynn effect should be discussed separately from the genetics section. The mechanism of the effect is unknown. Amongst the possible mechanisms are nutrition, heterosis, and any variety of testing artifacts. These are not evidence against genetics; but rather are orthogonal to it. That's why I think it would be best to give the Flynn effect it's own section where it can be fleshed out -- rather than trying to put it up directly against genetics. --Rikurzhen 21:07, Mar 1, 2005 (UTC)
:Will try to add a section. Ultramarine 22:44, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  the Flynn effect 

message: It seems now like Ultramarine is going to take issue with anything I do, no matter what.  The article on culture, gender, and intelligence is relevant to the article on race and IQ because it provides additional support for a claim made by opponents of Jensen and Rushton, namely, that culture is the primary determinant of variations in intelligence among humans, rather than heredity.  That finding calls into question much of the reaserch being done by some (e.g. Rushton). Slrubenstein   |  Talk  23:20, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I read the article. There was no mention of Rushton, Jensen, IQ or race. Is this you idea of a replay to Rushton's or Jensen's critique? Also, avoid ad hominem attack and show some real replies to the critique against Gould. Not an article that do not even mention his nameUltramarine 23:33, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

text: How can an article do not even mention possible race differences in intelligence be relevent to this article? Or relevant to Gould's ideas when it does not mention his name or book? This is original research. Ultramarine 23:42, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stop taking everything personally 

message: Is "Hispanic" a race? Surely it is a cultural rather than racial designation. Are the Spanish a different race to the French? Andy G 23:39, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hispanic? 

message: A while ago we had a table of average IQ scores per group. We couldn't agree on a standard for constructing it. I found that The Bell Curve has most of the data we wanted: African Americans 85, Latino 89, White 103, Asian 106, and Jewish Americans 115 (The Bell Curve pp. 273-278). Should be put in a table with that data and reference The Bell Curve? --Rikurzhen 00:34, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)
More data (copyrighted text) --Rikurzhen 00:38, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)
:Lynn (1991, 1996) showed that, on average, Orientals score higher on tests of mental ability than do Whites, both within the U.S.A. and in Asia, whereas Africans and Caribbeans score lower. Oriental populations in East Asia and North America typically have mean IQs falling between 101 to 111. White populations in Europe, South Africa, Australasia, and North America have mean IQs of from 85 to 115, with an overall mean of 100. Black populations living south of the Sahara, in the Caribbean, in Britain, and in North America, average IQs of from 70 to 90.
:: Here are others table  . I have read some studies that Jews have much lower IQ than 115. Might be other disagreements between the data also. Ultramarine 00:49, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  IQ table 

message: Ultramarine, are you sure about these adoption studies?
* Clark, E. A., & Hanisee, J. (1982). Intellectual and adaptive performance of Asian children in adoptive American settings. Developmental Psychology, 18, 595-599.
* Frydman, M., & Lynn, R. (1989). The intelligence of Korean children adopted in Belgium. Personality and Individual Differences, 12, 1323-1325.
I've looked at the meta-analysis paper you cited, but a 1996 paper from Rushton seems to contradict their reporting:
:Transracial adoption studies also reveal genetic influence. There have been at least three studies of Korean and Vietnamese children adopted into White American and White Belgian homes (Clark & Hanisee, 1982; Frydman & Lynn, 1989; Winick, Meyer, & Harris, 1975). As babies, many of these children had been hospitalized for malnutrition. Nonetheless, they excelled in academic ability with IQs 10 or more points higher than national norms. In contrast, Weinberg, Scarr, and Waldman (1992) found that at age 17, Black and mixed-race children adopted into White middle-class families performed at a lower level than the White siblings with whom they were raised. Adopted White children bad an average IQ of 106, an aptitude based on national norms at the 59th percentile, and a class rank at the 54th percentile; mixed-race children had an average IQ of 99, an aptitude at the 53rd percentile, and a class rank at the 40th percentile; and Black children had an average IQ of 89, an aptitude at the 42nd percentile, and a class rank at the 36th percentile. (Race, genetics, and human reproductive strategies by J. Philippe Rushton Genetic, Social & General Psychology Monographs, Vol. 122 02-01-1996.) 
I haven't been able to find the original papers online. --Rikurzhen 06:41, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)
::Rushton can claim to be correct by a very twisted use of words. The 1975 study had malnourished children but this study did not find higher IQ scores. The other studies two had no malnutrition and higher IQ scores. According to what I can see from the meta-analysis. Should make anyone suspicious of anything written by Rushton.
::On the other hand, he has a point regarding the adopted black children where the prior high IQ scores seem to disappear in adolescence. Environmental influences could still have a negative effect both before adoption and in adolescence. I also note that this seems to invalidate almost all of the studies in IQ and the Wealth of Nations since they almost all are done on children younger than 17. Ultramarine 07:33, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  adoption studies 

message: I do not understand the arguement here. The white and black children can have different environments which give different mean IQ even if the genetically determined intelligence is the same. Matching for IQ and looking at siblings only shows regression to the mean IQ for the races which may be environmentally affected. That the siblings have a similar environment do not change that the races can have different environments. Ultramarine 16:43, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A table would be interesting if you have the time. Or simply moving the bullet points into ordinary paragraph form. Ultramarine 18:04, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Regression among siblings to children matched for IQ