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Racial admixture studies, etc

The "Racial admixture studies" section is incoherent. I suggest something akin to:

Studies on mixed race individuals and on the relation between admixture and IQ have produced ambiguous results . Some studies on mixed race individuals seem to contradict a genetic hypothesis (i.e. Eyferth, 1969) others seem to support it (i.e. Rowe, 2002) and still others have produced results which could be interpreted in support for either a genetic or an environmental hypothesis (Willerman, et al, 1974) . With regards to studies on admixture and IQ, a number of studies have shown a relation between IQ and physical indexes of admixture, but the correlations found tend to be low and the associations found could be accounted for by social factors . Some studies have show a relation between IQ and genealogical indexes of admixture (i.e. Tanzer 1939, 1941), but other studies have failed to find such an association (Witty and Jenkins, 1936) . Other studies have failed to find a relation between IQ and admixture indexed by blood groups, but to what extent these studies provide evidence against a genetic hypothesis is not clear .

Likewise, adoption studies have produced mixed results...

This cuts down on the he said she said. Perhaps, after, include a section and "frequently discussed studies" in which a select few studies can be described in more depth. (A relatively objective way to determine which studies warrant more in depth discussion is to look at the number of citations each has had. The more discussed studies are: Scarr et al., 1977 -- blood groups -- (2)Witty and Jenkins, 1936 -- genealogy -- Eyferth, 1961 -- hybrid study -- Moore, 1986 -- adoption --- Willerman, et al, 1974 -- hybrid study -- Tizard, 1974 -- "controlled rearing" --, Weinberg et al., 1992 -- adoption study. Obviously most of these studies support am environmental hypothesis -- which is to be expected since environmentalist do most of the discussing.

As I noted the following studies have been cited in defense of a genetic hypothesis:

Fernandez, 2001 (Brazil) Pick, 1929 (SA) Claassen, 1990 (SA) Owen, 1992 (SA) Weinberg et al., 1992 (US) Codwell, 1947 (US) Lynn, 2002 (US) Rowe, 2002 (US) Feguson, 1919 (US) Peterson and Lanier, 1929 (US) Peterson and Lanier, 1929 (US) Young, 1929 (US) Grinder et al, 1964 (Caribbean) Davenport, 1928 (Caribbean) Klineberg, 1928 (US) Peterson and Lanier, 1929 (US) Bruce, 1940 (US) Bean, 1906 (US) Pearl, 1934 (US) Shockley, 1973? (US) Green, 1972 (Caribbean) Ned and Gruenfeld, 1976 (Caribbean) Tanser, 1939 (Canada) Tanser, 1941 (Canada) Eyferth, 1961 (Germany -- yes, cited by lynn in support of a genetic hypothesis) Moore, 1986 (US -- yes, the traditional adoption component showed a nonsignificant .27 SD difference and has been cited by Murray in support of a genetic hypothesis) Willerman, Naylor, and Myrianthopoulos, 1974 (US -- cited by Rushton in support of a genetic hypothesis) Herskovits, 1926 (US -- cited by Shuey in support of a genetic hypothesis) Klineberg, 1928 (US -- cited by Shuey in support of a genetic hypothesis)

And following studies have been cited in defense of an environmental hypothesis

Scarr et al., 1977 (US) Loehlin et al., 1973 (US) Witty and Jenkins, 1936 (US) Tizard, 1974 (UK) Eyferth, 1961 (Germany), Moore, 1986 (US) Willerman, et al, 1974 (US) (Nisbett -- due to the large difference between biracials raised by Black and White mothers) Herskovits, 1926 (US) (Nisbett -- due to the low correlations found) Klineberg, 1928 (US) (Nisbett -- due to the low correlations found)

In my opinion only the 7 studies mentioned above -- if any -- warrant in dept discussion, as they have each been cited more than half a dozen times. Does anyone else have an opinion on such a revision? I think we can all agree that the section as it currently reads is awful. --Hippofrank (talk) 19:32, 8 October 2011 (UTC)Hippofrank

I think that rather than attempting to give a detailed account of the studies it is a better approach to select one or two reputable secondary sources that treat the topic of admixture and intelligence and see how they weigh the material and then emulate that weighting. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:51, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

I just want to add a point. And I swear to be assuming good faith and neutral point of view. If someone did it here, he or she probably do not understand almost nothing about our race relations, and as such can not be specialist in the matter of race and miscegenation in Latin America (where it is widely common). In Brazil, almost everybody is triracial with ~80% of European descent. I'm pale, I had natural straight blonde hair (nowadays straight to mildly curly, medium brown), amber eyes and freckles and I'm son of 2 multiracials, and grandson of a Black Man, darker than the usual in Brazil. My grandfather came from an area of historical slavery, and he had sufficient European descent to make me and in a certain point my mother White. This is nothing unusual here. Conclusions about intelligence based in Race in Brazil are plain bullshit. IQ average in educated upper and middle middle class Brazilian black persons in Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, São Paulo, Recife or Brasília will certainly be really much higher (105+) than among White and Japanese-Brazilian people in little towns or the countryside making part of lower or lower middle class depending on the poor public education, receiving most of their information via TV and other more unsophisticated media, receiving huge sexist and heterosexist stimulus, making part of degrading youth subcultures (a problem greater when talking about poor peripheries) and developing perverse world views and attitudes (less than 87). As, I imagine, would happen in all over the world with similar conditions.

And it is just pointless for our black people because they proved to be mostly "Caucasian" in genetics since children of slaves were mostly doomed to infant mortality or more slavery except from a curtain period in country's history. Most of the survivors which perpetuated Black African ancestry among us were mulattoes since the White Man cared about his kids. Mulattoes who appeared "blacker" or "whiter" tended to procreate among themselves due to "cor" Brazilian racial prejudice. Everybody miscegenated so they received more European ancestry. Generations with consolidated African phenotypes led to 80% European descent black people as their descendants, and generations of light mulattoes who had kids with "criollo" and/or European Brazilians led to people with Caucasian phenotypes. But at genetic level, everybody, branco, pardo or negro, is somewhat of the same race, that simple. It is useless except if the IQ average data is collected from indigenous villages, quilombos, European settlement-based towns and people more easily identifiable in urban developments with "pure" (or almost) Portuguese, East Asian and Middle Eastern descent and then compare with the average Brazilians with perceived Amerindian, African, Triracial, Latin European, non-Latin European, East Asian and Middle Eastern descent, but it hardly happen. Not doing so is fomenting certain social relations and attitudes with pseudo-science.

I do not want to add "biased" or "unsourced" information, but what I stated here are known facts said by other Misplaced Pages articles itself. As I read before in this discussion, people explain Black/White intelligence by North American racial relations and the scientists are mostly focused in "Western", North American specifically, relations and meanings of race. Well, these standards exclude mentioning about multiethnic societies, with highly miscegenated people, which also follow racialized subdivisions and as such the arguments about Race and Intelligence by the foreign concepts become a more uneasy idea since people in the same top/bottom of the society, independent of the genes (but having a "racial minority" phenotype and as such identified as non-white, or the inverse, by its surrounding society are a good way to show how these factors can be socially constructed), will show the same effects of these researches. Finally, what I want to say is that people can not just use random IQ average tests in various societies around the world without methods and information about how race is constructed there. They can not pick up some "blacks", some "multiracials", some "third world whites" and say that it show how their world view about racial genetic differences and its depth in complex human individual variations as intelligence is correct as if it completely reflected their original society. Can someone say that it is science? Lguipontes (talk) 21:56, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Cool story bro. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.189.17.201 (talk) 14:26, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

race and genetics, rewrite

Maunus has claimed, along with others, that the "race and genetics" section gives undue weight to a genetic position. To "correct" for this, he and others have tossed in a number of irrelevant and redundant statements. As a result, the section is, in my humble opinion, incoherent. I suggest that we all collaborate on a rewrite of this section to make it more coherent and to give it the appropriate weight it deserves (perhaps 1/2 of what it has). To avoid a revert war, we can create two discussion topics below, a "rewrite of the race and genetics section" and a "discussion about a rewrite of the race and genetics section" topic, and hammer out a rewrite there. This section can be condensed and simplified quite a bit --Hippofrank (talk) 20:15, 8 October 2011 (UTC)Hippofrank (or previously, Chuck)

Hi Hippofrank, I am glad to see that you've decided to register. I basically agree that my solution was unelegant, and that writing a balanced section from scratch would be better. I currently I don't have the time to dig into that old material again. If you write up a section and post it here on the talk page for comments and suggestions for improvements I think that might be a good way to go about it. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:49, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Blacks have lowest IQ?

Last ¶ of lede

Made more general, comprehensive, able to have easily sourceable support added. The first alternative should have genetic, heritable factors combined with cultural/epigenetic ones, but leaving that for the editors supplying such support. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 17:28, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

An error

It is said that "Murray in a 2006 study agree with Dickens and Flynn that there has been a narrowing of the gap", (Ref.: "Evidence from the Children of the 1979 Cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 2006) The opposite, Muray reversed that statement: "Data for three Peabody achievement tests and for the Peabody picture vocabulary test administered to children of women in the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth show that the black-white difference did not diminish for this sample of children born from the mid 1970s through the mid 1990s. This finding persists after entering covariates for the child's age and family background variables. It is robust across alternative samples and specifications of the model. The analysis supplements other evidence that shows no narrowing of the black-white difference in academic achievement tests since the late 1980s and is inconsistent with recent evidence that narrowing occurred in IQ standardizations during the same period. A hypothesis for reconciling this inconsistency is proposed." You should edit this modification. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.147.18.253 (talk) 04:30, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

U.S. bias?

In the first section, only U.S. data is spoken of—the American Anthropological Association, the American Psychological Association, experiments performed in the United States, et cetera. Perhaps there might be data available which isn't limited to the U.S. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Samilo78 (talk • contribs) 23:57, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I recall making a similar comment myself many months ago. I have now decided that the reality is that this is primarily a US topic, because of that country's historical separation of races. Few other advanced countries with the ability to do so would have had the motivation to study this subject with such intensity. HiLo48 (talk) 00:12, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Tags and problems with the article

The recent removal of the tags brings to fore the issue of the stagnant state of this article. While some sporadic work has been done on this article, the nature and quality of the change has generally been hampered by both burnout from previous editors, a lack of new editors with interest and perspective, and habitual interruption by editors interested in promoting their favored POV. In truth, what may be the best approach would be to dump most of the article, and simply summarize one of the many current secondary overview sources on the matter, instead of presenting a comprehensive rehash of the historic debate, complete with extensive arguments from those arguing against the mainstream. I've replaced the tags, and invite other editors to work towards such a goal, though I expect significant work will again be met with stiff resistance from those who chaffe at the idea that IQ has not been shown to be a racial trait. aprock (talk) 17:47, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll add that if anyone feels like addressing specific section tags through edits, or removing specific section tags because they've been resolved, as opposed to stale, I fully support that sort of bold editing. Likewise improving then removing is also welcome. I'll try to make some time later in the week to do some research on specific sources and sections to help in this regard myself. aprock (talk) 18:13, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

you're absolutely right about anticipated resistance. the only way forward is to bring the matter of undue weight given to fringe theories to the fringe theories noticeboard.-- mustihussain  23:24, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Use of xxxers as reliable sources

It is not appropriate to use xxxers such as Murry, Ruston and Jensen as uncontroversially reliable sources. Specifically, this includes text sourced only to xxxers, with no caveat that they are a tiny minority. This must not continue - individuals editing who are followers of xxxers should not be reverting the fringe beliefs of their leaders into this article. Hipocrite (talk) 17:50, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I will point out that this exact issue is clearly delineated in the Arbitration findings of fact 1.1.iii: (iii) incessant over-emphasis on certain controversial sources. . Disruptive editing over this issue is certainly subject to discretionary sanctions. This of course applies to all editors large and small. These researchers are widely recognized as controversial, and the weight given to them in the article is currently undue. Constructive suggestions on how to source content to superior sources, or otherwise address the weight given to them, would be greatly helpful. aprock (talk) 17:57, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Victor keeps telling me to discuss on the talk page - but he's not discussing, just reverting. What am I to do? Hipocrite (talk) 18:42, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

When faced with the sort of disruption that Victor is engaging in I think the next obvious step is to note why you think the changes you made were warranted on the talk page. I personally haven't looked at any of the changes yet, but if you're making changes in an effort to address 1.1.iii, then I think you're more likely to find general support on the talk page than gatekeeping. aprock (talk) 18:47, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I believe I am. I would appreciate further review of my edits. Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 18:52, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Hipocrite, if you going to make a major change to the article, propose it on the talk page first, giving your reasons.--Victor Chmara (talk) 18:59, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

No. Review WP:BOLD. Please address the issue, which is the massive overweight given to Jensen and Rushton, and what can be done to lessen it. You must acknowledge they are a minority of researchers, correct? Hipocrite (talk) 19:00, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Jensen and Rushton are major participants in the scientific debate. Jensen is by far the most famous and influential scientist to have researched the topic. Much of the anti-hereditarian research has been conducted explicitly to address the views of Jensen, Rushton, Murray, and other hereditarians. James Flynn, for example, has cited Jensen as a major inspiration in his career. Much of Nisbett's research directly addresses Jensen and Rushton's. The views of Jensen, Rushton et al. should be discussed in the article to the extent that they are present in reliable sources.--Victor Chmara (talk) 19:12, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

We do not merely count articles - instead, we weigh in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint. Jensen, Rushton, Murray et al's viewpoints are not prominent - they are discarded as fringe by the vast majority of research - of this you are aware. They, themselves are prominent, mostly for being discarded as scientific racists. They cannot continue to take up the majority of the article. Hipocrite (talk) 20:06, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

The APA

The APA statement includes "There is not much direct evidence on this point, but what little there is fails to support the genetic hypothesis." Victor has removed this from the article multiple times. I don't think it's appropriate to remove this from the article and would like to understand why he is removing it. Why are you removing it? Hipocrite (talk) 18:57, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

The APA report concludes that the cause(s) of the gap are presently unknown. You misrepresented the report by writing that the APA agrees with Nisbett that genetic contributions are nil. Moreover, could you quote Flynn to the effect that genes don't contribute to the gap at all ("nil")?--Victor Chmara (talk) 19:03, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

My most recent revision does not include Flynn as saying anything - only you did that, and then promptly questioned yourself. Hipocrite (talk) 19:06, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I directly quoted the APA. How does my direct quote misrepresent them? I conclude that I don't know what I'll be having for lunch, but I will DEFINITELY not be having steak. Will I be having steak for lunch? You'd argue we don't know. Hipocrite (talk) 19:07, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

The article currently reads "Scientists, supported by the American Anthropological Association argue that the genetic contribution to the gaps (not to individual IQ) is nil", citing Flynn (a whole book, no page number) as one of the sources. Again, what does Flynn actually say?

Yes, a direct quote misrepresents a source if it is taken out of context. It is a misrepresentation to say that the APA report agrees with Nisbett. It clearly doesn't.--Victor Chmara (talk) 19:17, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Article does not currently say that. I didn't include the citation to Flynn - it predates me. I'll certainly figure out who added it and ask them. Hipocrite (talk) 19:19, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Victor has again provided specific attribution to Nisbett. This is not appropriate, as he is additionally supported by the AAA statement. Please carefully review WP:ITA. Hipocrite (talk) 19:46, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

The hypothesis that genes contribute to racial IQ gaps is not "fringe science". It is treated as a credible theory in reliable mainstream sources -- in, for example, Earl Hunt's "Human Intelligence", a textbook published this year by the noted fringe publisher Cambridge University Press. A large survey of behavioral scientists in the 1980s indicated that hereditarianism was the mainstream view among scientists, while the strong environmentalist view was supported by relatively few people. You cannot say that Nisbett's specific views are the same as those of unnamed other scientists.--Victor Chmara (talk) 21:00, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with this section. Please try to keep up, or at least stop reverting. We are discussing your constant reversion of "Scientists" to "Richard Nisbett," even though Richard Nisbett is agreed with by the major professional organization the American Anthropological Association, making specific attribution there inappropriate. Hipocrite (talk) 21:05, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I am not reverting. I am correcting errors based on discussion. You claimed that WP:ITA is relevant here, while it clearly isn't. Nisbett and the AAA statement are different entities. When you cite Nisbett and the AAA statement, you mention them, not any weasel words. Now, labels such as hereditarian and environmentalist are potentially useful here, but they should be used evenhandedly.--Victor Chmara (talk) 21:17, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I assume given that I found a series of other individuals commenting that there is no genetic basis for race that you're comfortable with the sentence as it currently stands? Hipocrite (talk) 13:51, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Protected

This page has been fully protected three days per the result of WP:AN3#User:Victor Chmara reported by User:Hipocrite (Result: Protected). The long-term edit warring on this page may possibly need to be addressed by more stringent measures, like a permanent WP:1RR restriction. EdJohnston (talk) 04:54, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Regression toward the mean section

The Regression toward the mean section is massively overweighted towards the minority views of Rushton and Jensen. Rushton is not a reliable source with respect to genetics, generally - he is discarded as fringe by multiple reliable sources. Jensen alone is merely a pariah of the field. There is no reason to have merely one sentence by Nisbett that cherry picks what he actually says surrounded by multiple comments by Jensen and Rushton. Unless someone can rewrite this section to be appropriately weighted, I suggest we remove it in it's entirety. Hipocrite (talk) 13:57, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree about the undue nature of the section. The topic and conclusions are really only promulgated by Rushton and Jensen, and there is no evidence that the field as a whole considers the topic in any way relevant. This specific topic rates quite low in the realm of things that should be covered, and yet receives coverage in this and other articles, like Heritability of IQ. Nisbett's summary of the topic is even more evidence that it doesn't merit coverage here. Previous versions of this content have been an utter mess of synthesis and original research, in no small part because there is little academic work of note on the topic. In truth, the section is just another indirect statistical argument for the hereditarian viewpoint. I fully support removing it from this article and Heritability of IQ as undue unless robust independent secondary sources can be found which weight the topic as prominently. aprock (talk) 17:18, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll also add that the previous RfC on the topic , is also pretty clear that the content doesn't merit inclusion, though some of the content might make sense in the Heritability article. aprock (talk) 17:20, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Way too much of the article takes this back and forth approach, tit for tat, argument by argument, usually constructed something like this: "the hereditarians say X. Nisbett says X-not." Of course that approach lends too much weight to the views-the framework of the article is too much built around their views while everything else is reduced to a rebuttal. (Note how many footnotes point to Nisbett's appendix! It's a full 300 page book on the topic, so why is it just where he rebuts the Bell Curve in the appendix that he's given the most attention here-16 footnotes?)

This claim, btw, it's not just coming Jensen/Rushton, but Eysenck and Murray/Herrnstein - along with many other hereditarians - they also make this argument. By the same token, it's not just Nisbett challenging it, but many others accuse of them committing the regression to the mean fallacy, that the statistic simply predicts outcomes and does not identify any particular causation. Jensen's more consistently a reliable source for these views, while a lot of Rushton's more "out-there" work is way out at the fringes of the fringe. But Jensen is not the mainstream position in the race/intelligence issue. He's the most dominant figure in one area, a subset of the larger issue, this "the racial gap in IQ is caused by genetics" part. Since it is one of (dozen?-need to look it up) items of evidence he cites in supporting the hereditarian hypothesis, that might be a better way to handle it. One section should here should be devoted to describing the hereditarian hypothesis and the evidence cited for it. It looms too large now.

How I see the topic handled in sources overall is that they identify there is an IQ gap, that to varying degrees this troubles policy makers of one kind or another, and social and educational policy makers have for some time worked to close it. Now and then researchers have advanced various theories about what causes the gap, and the hereditarian hypothesis is just one of them. The environmental hypothesis isn't really one. Instead there are many hypotheses - such as nutrition, unequal access to education, socio-economic disparity, race prejudice, family environment etc - lots of hypotheses involving a whole host of different causes that can be categorized as environmental. And they get a lot more attention, with policy makers anyway. So maybe if the over-all outline were firmed up better here, then the undue weight problem might be resolved. Professor marginalia (talk) 18:00, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the whole back and forth aspect is largely contrived by those who would establish the genetic causes as having parity with environmental causes. In fact, the broad organization of the article isn't so much of a tit-for-tat as, present all the arguments and research of hereditarian researchers, and present little to none of the broader community of science. Most of the mainstream work is done in the context of achievement gap, but none of that work is presented here. This is in no small part due to proponents of hereditarian researchers framing not just the structure of the article, but of the topic in general. Discussing IQ in a vacuum is essentially playing up specific achievement differences and ignoring others. You even see this more starkly on Ashkenazi Jewish intelligence where it's not really IQ that is discussed, but verbal IQ. aprock (talk) 18:12, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I think the most basic issue with the article is how it's divided up into hereditarian vs. environmental arguments. As Professor Marginalia said, the environmental hypothesis is really many different hypotheses. Not all hereditarians agree with one another either - for example Murray and Herrnstein take a different perspective about some things than Jensen and Rushton. And there are people like Earl Hunt who disagree with some parts of both positions.

I think by dividing most of the article into "potential environmental causes" vs. "genetic arguments" we're oversimplifying the issue. In addition it seems like an original research problem. For example who gets to decide that racial admixture studies are a "genetic argument"? Studies such as Witty and Jenkins are often discussed as evidence that ancestry doesn't affect IQ, so this is as much an environmental argument as a genetic one. I suggest combining the "potential environmental causes" and "genetic arguments" sections into one section with a neutral title such as "debate overview". We can work on improving neutrality of individual topics as well.Boothello (talk) 21:21, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

"Who gets to say?" Ok, we don't write the article to describe study after study done in primary research, so your question shouldn't apply anyway. The article should be based on secondary sources, and the broader the better. As in textbooks, so long as they're fairly current. The hypothesis that the IQ gap is determined mostly by genetics is tested with racial admixture studies. The "who decided" this, the "who decided" which hypothesis a study pertains to, will usually be given in the study itself. But more importantly, we look at what the secondary sources "decided". And your example is a strange one to me. What else but a genetic connection would an "racial admixture study" seek to assess in this context? Scientists don't conduct "racial admixture studies" to ask questions like whether test prep or vitamin supplements improve IQ scores. Professor marginalia (talk) 22:37, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

The "racial admixture studies" section is mostly based on a chapter by John C. Loehlin in the Handbook of Intelligence, a secondary source. Loehlin says the results of the Witty and Jenkins study do not appear to be genetic, because the study shows that high-IQ black people don't have an above-average degree of european ancestry. So this is a racial admixture study that argues for an environmental cause of the IQ gap and not a genetic one. But Loehlin says there are other racial admixture studies that suggest a genetic difference, and that none of the studies are conclusive. His eventual conclusion is just that more research is needed before the question can be answered for sure. This is a reason why it's a bad idea to label this as either a "genetic argument" or an "environmental argument". Loehlin says there are racial admixture studies that argue for both conclusions, and he doesn't take a strong stand in either direction about which is correct.Boothello (talk) 23:16, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

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