Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 49

message: here's what NPOV says. AFAIK, these are "non-negotiable". however, I understand experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties to be rather inclusive. --W.R.N. 23:52, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WRN, could you clarify yourself?  Are you saying that as far as you are concerned, your position is "non-negotiable"? --JereKrischel 00:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WRN, more specifically, what are you implying is the "majority" view and the "minority" view? If we extend the debate to all involved walks of science, I don't think the "majority view" is what the article was at first trying to convey.--Ramdrake 00:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I think we've established that the literature is mostly divided along the question of the magnitude of the causes of group differences.  Or was that a conversation I had with Nectarflowed? --JereKrischel 00:31, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Thank you for the clarification.  Now, how can we negotiate with you regarding your understanding of NPOV as it relates to this article?  Do you have any negotiable points? --JereKrischel 00:30, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  what npov says 

message: This outline is similar to the article as it is at present. 
----
if "organizing principle" = "thing you talk about in the article" then I agree and would suggest that already describes the state of the article. the article must discuss "race" and "intelligence," respectively, in a way that is proportionate and relevant. -- Here's the salient part of the current article outline. I think we do exactly that, and take the time in sect. 1 to highlight the debate about causes.
* 1 Background information
** 1.1 Race
** 1.2 Intelligence testing
** 1.3 The contemporary debate: results and interpretations
** 1.4 History
* 2 Average gaps among races
* 3 Explanations
** 3.1 Introduction
** 3.2 Environmental explanations
** 3.3 Genetic explanations
** 3.4 Expert opinion
* 4 Significance of group IQ differences
* 5 Public debate and policy implications
so, if there's a dispute about this very specific item, it must be something more subtle that i'm missing. [maybe slow to get to other threads started above.] --WD RIK NEW 19:24, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Organizing principle 

message: if anyone is having trouble with the talk page length, please make a note here. otherwise, there should be no need to archive material that's less than a week old. --W.R.N. 02:23, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, fair enough. futurebird 02:39, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have a problem when in less than a week the talk page grows over 100 kb.  I think if people were focusing on one issue, and clearly working towards some sort of consensus or resolution, this would be tolerable.  But when people keep repeating themselves or go off on tangents, nothing is being accomplished.  In short, a lot of signal is fine as long as the noise-to-signla ratio is low.  I have made a few attempts to mediate but I do not think you "need" me.  What you (all of you) need to do is pick one or two issues and commit yourselves to working out a resolution that is compliant with NPOV and NOR and V.  But I see topics introduced and dropped.  So why shouldn't those be archived, if you all decide to drop the topic and move on to something else? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 12:00, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I just archived 79 kb of talk that occured over only three days.  Why did I archive it?  Because despite the fact that I thought there were some good suggestions in them, no one followed through on them.  This talk page is not just a place to register random ideas, it is to discuss how to improve the article.  If suggestions are ignored, they may as well be archived.  Right now the talk page is 124 kb long, still almost four times longer than it should be, and it is all from January 30-February 3.  I BEG all of you: look over this talk page and ask yourself how many topics have been discussed and then just abandoned, how many suggestions made and ignored?  It seems to me that the answer to both question is a lot.  for example, there was much thoughtful discussion about the graphs - but no resolution was reached and the topic was dropped. What is the point of leaving that material on the page since people are not willing to talk it through until they reach a resolution?  If this is the general pattern we may as well archive daily. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 12:07, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know, but at this point, I'm feeling that the very fact that the article page is locked is part and parcel of what prevents us from going forward and trying out solutions on the article. Instead, we bring up possible solutions, but since it's impossible to go and try them out, we're stuck discussing stuff ad nauseam. I believe it might be time to unlock this article. I believe there is enough agreement that the article can go forward without immediate fear of another edit war. It's at least worth a shot.--Ramdrake 13:04, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I faced a similar situation with a number of other editors on a policy page (so the stakes were high).  We agreed to keep the page locked after a lengthy revert war.  We then sorted out specific edits that were contentious.  We then went through them one at a time, to see whether consensus could be reached.  The policy page remained locked, but once all the participants achieved a consensus about an edit, an admin made the edit.  Once all the contentious edits had been reviewed and revised until there was consensus, and edits made one by one, then the page was unblocked. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 13:54, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but this isn't a policy page. Stakes may be higher for WP on a policy page, but my guess here is the situation is more emotional. I still think unblocking is worth a shot, as my reading of the situation on this talk page is that many editors here seem to be catching the WP equivalent of cabin fever: we keep focusing on our problems, but we are lacking a bit in the solutions department, and few people seem to be willing to listen to other people's proposals for solution.--Ramdrake 14:10, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Well, it was not I who protected the page, but Ryan Delaney.  I would defer to him.  I suspect that if you and RIK agree about this, you may convince him to unprotect (if he refuses, I promise you that after a few more days - to give the RfC some more time - I will unprotect).  In the meantime, I have a request: go through the most recently archived material.  If you think there is anything there that ought to remain "on the table," I would invite you to copy it and put it back on the active talk page.  I request (it is really advice) that you do so (if you are willing at all) only under two conditions: (1) be very selective and (2) only do it if it fits into SOME discussion already here in the active talk page. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 15:55, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: SLR, I think that futurebird has done a good job of starting us off iteratively with her Talk:Race and intelligence/new intro feb 07 page.  Can we focus all of our attention just on that intro section, with WRN and I holding all other topics in abeyance, and come to some consensus, and then have an admin put that edit in?  I think that if you opened the page up now, the edit war would continue, with changes being made to the article that WRN found inappropriate, and his response to simply revert them.  I suggest that we should work on the new intro together, then have a straw-poll to decide if it should be put into the article by an admin.  We can probably do the same with other individual sections as well, although I'm certain that some of the iterations will be more complex due to the desired restructuring of the outline. --JereKrischel 16:59, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you, futurebird, WRN and Ramdrake all agree on a new intro, I will put it in. I will stay out of the process, but I think for any such edit to endure, all of you will need to agree on it. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 17:22, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, SLR!  It would be helpful if you were involved in the process, though, to give us some specific guidance on any disagreements we may have in coming to consensus on a new intro.  I'm just afraid that even with a small section like the intro, we may essentially engage in the same talking-past each other.  Hopefully I'm wrong, and we can all find some sort of compromise, but just in case, even if you don't make direct contributions to the new intro, your calm, measured opinion on disagreements is very valuable to us all. --JereKrischel 17:57, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  talk page length 

message: Guys, have you noticed that in the last couple of days, we've gone back to talking at cross-purposes? Everyone here wants to go ahead with their own personal solution about what to do with the article , but it sounds like everybody is talking into thin air, way past each other. We are getting exactly nowhere doing this. I strongly suggest we go back to SLR's plan and discuss issues one at a time. 
:For myself, I would like to suggest that people stop archiving like crazy. As a rule, if a thread has been inactive for a week, go ahead and archive it, but I've seen threads archived in which I was writing just this morning, for goodness's sake!!! If that means the talk page gets to be 350k, so be it. The Evolution talk page is even larger than that, and nobody seriously complains. I'm sorry if I sound annoyed, but maybe I am. People are archiving left and right trying to get editors to focus on what they think is important, but we don't know that we have consensus on much of anything yet. I would suggest we go back to SLR's four points and pick up the discussion from there, one point at a time. I feel like we took a wrong ledt turn somewhere shortly after that.--Ramdrake 19:00, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, point taken. I was honestly trying to help. futurebird 19:04, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No one doubts your sincerity, but you need to fix the mess you created.  Any material from Jan 31 or Feb1-3 that you archived must be restored to where it was. You have to fix it. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 19:08, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

text: People need to stop fighting and focus on what needs to be changed in this article. JJJamal 20:30, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is out of field for me, but I think it interesting. Slrubenstein's comment on a lack of productive discussion is something I'm guilty of myself. It is easy to make arguments with merit and citations. We often jab and parry, but the hard part is really working together to find a consensus or compromise that ends up in the article (not just Talk). I have removed my additions that were perfectly legitimate and well referenced and CORRECT, but I finally realized that being right was not the point because the article was just giving a simple example of natural selection with antibiotic resistance in bacteria (but my anal penchant for being accurate just got the better of me so I had to qualify with a whole spew which detracted from the point and the article). Slrubenstein is correct to work out each issue one at time. All of you editors appear bright, articulate, and knowlegeable about the topic so I believe you can put disagreements aside or compromise to produce an excellent article. I really have to believe that reason will win the day. GetAgrippa 04:24, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the kind motivational word GA! I will try my best to be cooperative. futurebird 14:10, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stop (please!) 

message: So this argument might go to the WP:NOR problem.  Underneath Genetic explanations, WRN has written this -
Several recent studies have found some neuronal genes have variants that have spread to high frequencies under selective pressure and now occur in different frequencies in different global populations.[20] Some of this selection occurred within the last 10,000 years, such as a recent variant of the ASPM gene that is found mostly among European and East Asian populations. The cause of the selective sweep and the effects of these variants are generally not yet known, although some suspect that they could be related to intelligence.[117] Although neurogenic diversity theoretically increases the chances of functional diversity, ultimately, very little is known about the actual impact of these variants, and the researchers caution that they may not have anything to do with cognition or intelligence at all.[118]
Certainly this is a "genetic explanation" of something, but it is not an assertion of any sort relating race to intelligence, and the researchers themselves are cautious about this.  It certainly doesn't relate to social categories of "race", such as U.S. blacks and U.S. whites.  Why such prominent mention in the article?  Well, WRN is a geneticist, and he connected the dots together, and decided that these very recent studies were supportive of a "genetic explanation" for observed differences between "races" and intelligence.  Can we agree that this paragraph should be removed from the article?  Comments? --JereKrischel 04:39, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The quoted material is certainly interesting, and it actually tends to subvert the common sense idea of [race] that links it to superficial (in the literal sense of the word) marker characteristics. What the quotation depicts as "selective sweep" indicates that these "variants that have spread to high frequencies under selective pressure" are "invasive" to several so-called "racial" groups in different parts of the globe. I'm not sure what ought to be done with the information, or what could legitimately be done with it without "synthesis." Isn't the problem with the quoted material that there may be some degree of "synthesis" just by the way that several summaries of cited materials are placed side by side? In the second sentence there is an implication, I suspect, that the ASPM gene has something to do with the purportedly higher average intelligence of "European and East Asian populations." But there is no citation for that claim, so where did it come from? Then there is a third sentence that confirms the implicit idea but in a weakened form. The fourth sentence also adds a note of caution.  So what we seem to be left with is the knowledge that genes can be "invasive" in the way that honeybees are invasive in the Americas. They happen to be very useful and desirable in almost all ways, but "invasive" in the sense that they are outsiders that have moved in to stay. Maybe that paragraph really belongs in the race article. P0M 19:01, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Specific example problem

message: In the Environmental explanations section, an interesting claim is tacked onto a discussion of the Flynn effect.
Such differences would need to develop before age 3, when the black-white IQ gap can be first detected.[94]
The reference 94 is for Rushton/Jensen 2005a.  Instead of making a bald statement of fact, a specific statement should be attributed to Rushton/Jensen.  Looking at the reference , it seems there is no claim at all that differences would need to develop before age 3, but simply a statement that The size of the average Black-White difference does not change significantly over the developmental period from 3 years of age and beyond.
Can we agree that this sentence and improper reference should be removed from the article?  Comments? --JereKrischel 04:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems to me that you have made a compelling argument that it should be rewritten, not removed. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 13:32, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If the sentence was rewritten to reflect what the actual source said, it would no longer be addressing the particular point being made by Flynn.  Are you suggesting that I should both suggest a rewrite for the sentence, and a more appropriate place for it in the article?  Something like, Rushton and Jensen state, "The size of the average Black-White difference does not change significantly over the developmental period from 3 years of ange and beyond", and then stick it in a different section? --JereKrischel 18:01, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: YASE (yet another specific example)

message: *The most obivous interpretation of "self identified race" is as a social category, based first on skin color, second on specific racial features and third known ancestry (when it isn't too remote).--Ramdrake 14:14, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: With all due respect, the phrase "the most obvious" should be banned from this distinction.  The reason this question is salient is because people self-identify race when they take IQ tests.  The only issue is how have verifiable and reliable relvant sources - not us, or some vague abstract general public to which things are obvious - interpreted this.  We need to provide an account not of what we think, but of what participants in debates over race and intelligence have actually written in verifiable sources.  Ramdrake, please, just expressing what you think is not going to move us forward.  We need proposals for additions or changes to the article concerning this question, and changes have to be NPOV and NOR compliant. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 14:45, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I certainly wasn't doing this to aggravate you. What I might suggest then, if you wanted referenced and cited opinions from the  literature only, would have been to say: What are different interpretations of "self-identified race" existing in the literature? That would have made it clearer that you wanted only cited answers. As it was clearer for your second question, I didn't answer right away to take the time necessary to look up the literature.--Ramdrake 15:47, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Wantednewlook, you are misunderstanding the question.  The question is not "what does Jenson or anyone else think races are."  The question is this: Jenson and others use data in which people self-identify their race.  In their published i.e. verifiable literatture, how do Jensen and other researchers move from that data to the larger models of race and intelligence?  What is their criteria, what steps do they take - if they have published on it.  And have their critics provided other analyses of the data and any correlations between self-identified races and average IQ scores?  What has beenpublished that needs to be represented in this article?  How should we represwent it?  Again, I am asking for proposals for specific edits to the article.  Anything else belongs in a chat room or blog. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 17:43, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: SLR, I understand this to be a response to criticisms that originated with JK or other. I don't believe this is going to be productive, because I believe the question has not really been asked or answered in the literature because it's not really of much interest. A review of the literature will most likely find that researchers use straightforward sampling techniques and statistics, such as those used in epidemiology. A sample of people of some self-described race/ethnicity is used to estimate the distribution of traits in the overall population of that race/ethnicity. --W.R.N. 17:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The question is of great interest, and has had significant consequences on the topic.  For example, historically, U.S. categories of "race" have changed, with the 2000 census particularly departing from past options.  Self-described race/ethnicity looks very different depending on the options given and the context.  There are several studies showing that self-describe race/ethnicity changes depending on the context (answers given at school, for example, may be different than answers given at home, answers at one age may be different than answers at another age).  I understand that it is a distraction from the question and the assumptions of "race", but I must strongly disagree with your characterization that this is not "of much interest". --JereKrischel 18:43, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: How to represent the different interpretations of ''self identified race'' in the verifiable literature? 

message: :::With respect to these sentences:
:::Other geneticists(such as who?), in contrast, argue that categories of self-identified race/ethnicity or biogeographic ancestry are both valid and useful,[14] that these categories correspond with clusters inferred from multilocus genetic data,[15] and that this correspondence implies that genetic factors might contribute to unexplained phenotypic variation between groups.[16]
:::15. ^ Harpending and Rogers 2000, Bamshad et al. 2003, Edwards 2003, Bamshad et al. 2004, Tang et al. 2005, Rosenberg et al. 2005: "If enough markers are used... individuals can be partitioned into genetic clusters that match major geographic subdivisions of the globe".
:::(Which source is the quote from?)
:::Tang, H., Quertermous, T., Rodriguez, B., Kardia, S. L., Zhu, X., Brown, A., Pankow, J. S., Province, M. A., Hunt, S. C., Boerwinkle, E., Schork, N. J. and Risch, N. J. (Feb 2005). "Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies". American Journal of Human Genetics 76 (2): 268-275. .
:::About race, but not intelligence. Probably not OK in this context.
:::Rosenberg, N. A., Mahajan, S., Ramachandran, S., Zhao, C., Pritchard, J. K. and Feldman, M. W. (December 1 2005). "Clines, Clusters, and the Effect of Study Design on the Inference of Human Population Structure". PLoS Genetics 1 (6): e70.
:::Can't find a mention of "race" in the abstract-- this is about groups and has no mention of intelligence.
:::Bamshad, M., Wooding, S., Salisbury, B. A. and Stephens, J. C. (2004). "Deconstructing the relationship between genetics and race". Nat. Rev. Genet. 5: 598-609. DOI:10.1038/nrg1401.
:::This is about race in a clinical context, not OK to list as a source here.
:::Edwards, A. W. (Aug 2003). "Human genetic diversity: Lewontin's fallacy". Bioessays 25 (8): 798-801. .
:::This one is fine, as a source here, But where was this published? It didn't say in the PDF.
:::futurebird 22:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Problems with Citation(s) 15

message: :::and that this correspondence implies that genetic factors might contribute to unexplained phenotypic variation between groups.[16]
:::This isn't about groups. It's about race.futurebird 22:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Problem with last part of the sentence at 16

message: How about this? Please feel free to jum in and make your own changes. futurebird 01:30, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not sure how to correct this text in a compliant way. My problem with it is that it conflates a theory of [race] that sees it as a relatively unfuzzy category with categories that are "useful for clinical purposes."  Recently there has been criticism of overconfidence in judgments based on [racial] factors to the exclusion of good clinical workups. The fact that, e.g., "Barack Obama is black," (his own assessment) does not guarantee that he will react better to the heart medications that are generally more effective for blacks. Good physicians apparently make judgments about what to try first on this rule-of-thumb basis, but then they watch the clinical signs carefully to see whether the statistical bet is paying off or putting the patient in the hole. (Maybe literally.) When a good M.D. says, "He's black," that means something far different than when David Duke says it. P0M 21:44, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible revision (version two)