Talk:Race and intelligence/Archive 54

message: Agree with re-write nom - This article does need a rewrite; for one thing, it doesn't get down to the meat of the topic (is there a correlation and what is the correlation?) until a good 3 or 4 sections later, preceded by a lot of excusing, explanation, and general "we're sorry the data says this but it IS what it says". I hate to make criticism without being proactive, but given the number of experts and obviously well-researched data as well as the amount of time put into this thing I'm keeping my hands off. My suggestion? Put the background information much lower in the article or shorten it up, and de-obfuscate the language in the rest of the article so a person who wants to know about this topic can find out the basics without reading the entire thing carefully. By the way, I found this article through a wiki-path that started with Intertel and ended here by way of Intelligence Quotient - CredoFromStart 18:46, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  rewrite 

message: This is a huge topic. Is there a portal for it? Or at least a WikiProject? 
There is so much material, that managing and organizing it all is a task in itself - let alone the challenge of finding a neutral treatment.
Is there a main point? Or are there 2 or 3 main issues? I'll try to list a few here:
*Are some people simply "born smarter"?
**If so, does this heritage correlate with "race"?
**Is intelligence immutable? (Or can a person become smarter or stupider during their lifetime?)
*Are smarter people more "successful" in any significant way?
**get better jobs
**invent more stuff
**create more artistic stuff
*How should society treat people who appear to be smarter or less smart?
**Help the disadvantaged, i.e., remedial classes or extra "points" for certain races/ethnicities on placement tests
**Give up on stupid people, i.e., "they can't be educated, let them be janitors"
**Change the way money and power are distributed so that intelligence is no longer an advantage (socialism?)
A good Wikiproject would list all the issues and recruit volunteers to write about each of them, preferably in compatible groups.
Your comments are quite helpful. But please sign your posts. :) -Ste|vertigo 21:04, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry about that. My username is Uncle Ed 11:40, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scope 

message: why? if its the same reason as above, then the same answer applies. --W.R.N. 18:41, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's hold off until mediation. I think the solution to this question will come from the content of the article. futurebird 19:26, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  moved again 

message: I've put the list of sources from the top of the page here User:Futurebird/sources futurebird 17:31, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources 

message: discussion of MI doesn't belong in this article unless something more than the definition and a suggestion that it may someday produce results related to this subject can be documented. either way, such suggestions must be attributed because the majority view is that MI is bunk. You could document the scholarly case against MI just by citing papers in which Sternberg is an author -- just to give you an idea of how rejection of MI cuts across all lines drawn in this article. --W.R.N. 21:29, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we should mention it. futurebird 21:50, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The questions are -- where, how and about what? I'll rephrase my comment above -- discussion of MI doesn't belong in the background section of the article unless something more than the definition and a suggestion that it may someday produce results related to this subject can be documented. if that's it, then it's not background. documenting the existence of alt. theories of intelligence may be useful as a note in that section, but if they won't be mentioned again, then expanding on them is inappropriate. --W.R.N. 21:59, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

text:  I’m not familiar with this theory, though a quick read of the first paragraphs of the WP article are intriguing. I have had thoughts in this direction to explain how these drastic IQ variances within populations are less manifested in day to day life.  The example of a child unable to master rote learning but highly capable elsewhere is my personal story.  While a whiz at calculus, I was a dunce at multiplication tables.  While able to compose and interpret complex contracts, I’m a flop at spelling.  How does this simple empirical example relate to potential strengths within populations?  It was no secret in business school that some “races” were absent from the accounting program, while the “race” which dominated accounting was slimly represented in marketing classes. --Kevin Murray 00:28, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Kevin, it's not disputed by anyone that there are a multiplicity of cognitive skills and abilities (or learning temperaments). What is disputed by experts is that (1) these are independent abilities and that (2) the abilities identified by Gardner are all actually "intelligences" in any meaningful sense. Across the full range of intellectual ability, the kind of divergence of skills you are describing does not occur to any great extent. It is only in the top few percent of the population that notable discrepancies in specific abilities are obvious (e.g., a math geek, a musical prodigy). See Triarchic theory of intelligence for a much better but still minority view of multiple intelligences. --W.R.N. 03:43, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Sort of misses my point. MI belongs in the intelligence article w/o a doubt, where you can currently read about it. But the R&I relevant literature from MI research appears to not extend beyond saying that it would be great if such literature existed. The fact that most researchers find MI bunk is simply an explanation as to why there's no MI research on race -- because there's essentially no MI research at all -- and as to why its not worth mentioning here, it's not actually background. If those claims turn out to be wrong, and it is background for something in this article, then we'd need to reassess. --W.R.N. 19:57, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

text: My other point is that Gardner's MI is not unique, and there are several variants, including Sternberg's which plausibly is related to R&I given some work published on it. --W.R.N. 19:59, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Right. MI is largely an rhetorical argument, rather than a scientific theory, and as such only has meaning in the context of being applied to other arguments and theories. It does have meaning here, but I dont think its fair to make too much hay of it except to say that 'the common sense notion that different people have different strengths has been codified somewhat into the term "multiple intelligences". The concept is controversial and has been said to be more of a rhetorical argument more than a theory' etc. (But then again not much better can be said about racial differences with respect to intelligence testing). By the way, it isnt more intelligent to capitalise every new trademarked theory that comes along. Multiple intelligences should not be capitalised. -Ste|vertigo 00:11, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

text: For the record I dislike how this whole subject has been split and made into a lot more than it is. I think its about the most abhorrently incoherent series of articles I have seen since... 2002. -Ste|vertigo 00:20, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Steve, I think I agree with you ... but I do not see an alternative ... Can you propose a concrete alternative that you have good reason will address the concerns of the other principal contributors? Slrubenstein   |  Talk 10:54, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  multiple intelligence theory 

message: I propose to archive what are now sections 1-8 (this more or less carries us to the point when the request for mediation was made), ending with the section on "cooperation and respect for others" on Monday Feb. 26.  I ask current contributors to go over material in those eight sections and make sure that anything that should be in the article, or be preserved for continued discussion, is acted on before I archive.  Thanks, Slrubenstein   |  Talk 13:51, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New archiving warning