Talk:Race and intelligence

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Race & genetics

Addressing Crusio's comment, there are markers that could be looked for. for example is the PCSK9 allele, this is all in the context that certain races are more susceptible to certain diseases. Certain races also respond differently to medications. Certain allels are prevalent in only certain races (although there is race mixing as immigration and such, the alleles are still passed on)

I'm sure you all know I'm alluding to NitroMed's BiDil. http://investors.nitromed.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=130535&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=723543&highlight=

More on DiBil on wiki is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BiDil

In this case, BiDil seems to help heart failure in african americans more then other races. Should we not research into this?

Would it be racist to give african americans (in the article, they were "self identified black patients") this medicine?

I think a lot of the stigma around nazi's and eugenics and racism has halted the academic freedom into research into this matter. People needs to understand that as an academic, one must have an academic view on things. If a particular drug helps a particular race, then why not use it? But we can't CHOOSE what results produces, we must accept them in order to change. ie. If a particular gene/allele is present in one race that's lacking in others, I must ACKNOWLEDGE the difference in order to help develop methods to create possible genetic cures. Like I said in my previous post here about apples, we must accept the research in order to make decisions to the best our abilities.

To turn a blind eye to this is not only limiting academic freedom, but is an injustice to humanity as a whole. An example is seen in the case of Lysenkoism, which caused famines that killed millions. Darkcurrent 20:09, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

This is about biology

One problem I see with race research is the following. Basically, a biological phenomenon (distribution of genes, which may or may not differ between groups) is under study. However, as far as I can see, no study of race employs a biological definition of race in its selection of subjects. This not to say that there are no biological definitions of race or that such definitions are not given in the articles in which race research is published. The fact is that subjects are assigned to "race" categories based on criteria other than biology, basically how a subject defines herself/himself. In the US, this usually means that anyone who has some ancestry tracing back to sub-Saharan Africa is being defined as an African-American, even though biologically speaking his African ancestry may be far less than 50%. The opposite is not true. I do not see how research into a biological phenomenon using non-biological definitions can lead to valid results.

Crusio 11:02, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

How do you think we could improve the article to better reflect this distinction?

In the United States, racial distinctions are generally made on the basis of skin color, facial features, inferred ancestry, national origin, cultural background and self-identification. In an ongoing debate, some geneticists argue race is neither a meaningful concept nor a useful heuristic device, and even that genetic differences among groups are biologically meaningless, on the basis that more genetic variation exists within such races than among them, and that racial traits overlap without discrete boundaries. Other geneticists, in contrast, argue that categories of self-identified race/ethnicity or biogeographic ancestry are both valid and useful, that these categories correspond with clusters inferred from multilocus genetic data, and that this correspondence implies that genetic factors might contribute to unexplained phenotypic variation between groups.

A survey taken in 1985, asked 1,200 scientists how many disagree with the following proposition: "There are biological races in the species Homo sapiens." The responses were: biologists 16%, developmental psychologists 36%, physical anthropologists 41%, cultural anthropologists 53%. A survey of cultural and physical anthropologists done in 1999 found that the concept of race was rejected by 69% of physical anthropologists and 80% of cultural anthropologists.

Many alleles vary in frequency across (and within) human populations. Most of this variation is selectively neutral, but a significant number show evidence of recent positive selection. These include genes involved in brain development and other neuronal functions, which have variants that have spread to high frequencies under selective pressure and now occur in substantially different frequencies in different global populations. The actual functions of these genes, and their effect, if any, on IQ is unknown.

Many of the sources in this section are about "race" but not about 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. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Schwartz, R. S. (2001). "Racial profiling in medical research". New England Journal of Medicine. 344: 1392–1393. doi:10.1056/NEJM200105033441810. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help)

• Stevens, J. (2003). "Racial Meanings and Scientific Methods: Changing Policies for NIH-Sponsored Publications Reporting Human Variation". Journal of Health Politics Policy and Law. 28 (6): 1033–1088. doi:10.1215/03616878-28-6-1033. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Wilson, J. F. (2001). "Population genetic structure of variable drug response". Nature Genetics. 29: 265–269. doi:10.1038/ng761. PMID 11685208. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Risch, N., Burchard, E., Ziv, E. and Tang, H. (2002). "Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race and disease". Genome Biology. 3 (7): comment2007.2001 - comment2007.2012. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Other sources are about genetics and intelligence, but not about race:

• Mekel-Bobrov, N., Gilbert, S. L., Evans, P. D., Vallender, E. J., Anderson, J. R., Hudson, R. R., Tishkoff, S. A. and Lahn, B. T. (2005). "Ongoing adaptive evolution of ASPM, a brain size determinant in Homo sapiens". Science. 309 (5741): 1720–1722. PMID 16151010. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Evans, P. D., Gilbert, S. L., Mekel-Bobrov, N., Vallender, E. J., Anderson, J. R., Vaez-Azizi, L. M., Tishkoff, S. A., Hudson, R. R. and Lahn, B. T. (2005). "Microcephalin, a gene regulating brain size, continues to evolve adaptively in humans". Science. 309 (5741): 1717–1720. PMID 16151009. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Some sources do mention both intelligence and race:

• The Biological Meaning of “Race”—Matt Riese
• Sternberg, R. J., Grigorenko, E. L. and Kidd, K. K. (2005). "Intelligence, Race, and Genetics" (PDF). American Psychologist. 60: 46–59. PMID 15641921. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Suzuki, L. and Aronson, J. (2005). "The Cultural Malleability of Intelligence and Its Impact on the Racial/Ethnic Hierarchy". Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. 11 (2): 320–327. doi:10.1037/1076-8971.11.2.320. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Smedley, A. and Smedley, B. D. (2005). "Race as Biology Is Fiction, Racism as a Social Problem Is Real: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives on the Social Construction of Race" (PDF). American Psychologist. 60 (1): 16–26. doi:10.1037/0003-066x.60.1.16. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

In this section I think we need to be careful about using papers that say that race is valid for biomedical research as supporters of race categories as valid for intelligence research. We have talk about this point in the past, but I can't recall what we resolved to do about it... if anything. futurebird 13:29, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Did we not make a silent surrender on that score? It seems to me that we are not "permitted" to put two and two together if four ends up disputing the validity of [race] but we are "permitted" to put two and two together if four ends up supporting the validity of [race] and/or its connection to intelligence. P0M 06:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, Futurebird. Actually, on closer reading (which I should have done to start with.... sorry...), the section following your quote above exactly makes the point I was making. Crusio 13:37, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Hm

This is about ethnicity, social constructs of biology, and genetics, and nutrition, SES, and likely other things I haven't begun to consider. Hence, the muddle, as well as the variance, between scientific fields. I would challenge our resident editors to ask whether the Hutu or Tutsi groups of Ruwanda are differing in intelligence (as measured by, uhm, the evasive 'g'), and what would be the most *concise* way of presenting this example of a multi-factoral question of self-and-socially-defined race "groups" to a lay reader who lacks any background in anthro, biology, etc. Do we need to teach them the fundamentals of social definitions, economics, power of group, socially constructed metrics to elevate a power group, etc.? Ronabop 07:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you have made a good summary of the reasons that it is difficult to get anyware using the word "race." One of the factors that made science a successful undertaking at the dawn of the modern age was the realization that scientists had to work out their vocabulary so that they all knew that they meant the same thing by a given word. If temperatures were involved then there had to be a common standard for two points on the temperature scale, e.g., 0 at the freezing point of water (and it had to be pure water) and 100 at the boiling point (and elevation/air pressure had to be taken into account).

The idea of [race] is considered useful by some researchers who regard it as a useful heuristic and research "lead-in" device. For instance, if some epidemic hits a major U.S. city, it might quickly become apparent that some [racial] group is being affected more strongly than any other. Then the appropriate thing to do might be to concentrate resources on people of that [race] -- without worrying for the moment whether the actual common factor is genetic, ethnic food preferences (maybe the problem lies in the kim chee not in the Korean genetics), physical environment (maybe Chinatown was the location of release of some biological weapon), etc. The trouble is that the impression that the average citizen may take away from a headline such as, "Little Taipei Hit by Mystery Cancer Epidemic" is that a certain intrinsically different group of people is involved when the true reason may be that the people of a certain group are being treated differently because of their perceived [racial] identity. P0M 15:37, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I think when this article was created it was only considering the US. Because race is almost clearly constructed in the US and extensive studies have been recorded for more than half a century. Outside of the US this study becomes almost nonsensical because race is not consistently constructed, in some places one can argue it is not constructed at all(eg ethnically homogeneous societies). I really think this article needs some serious re-evaluation possibly even deletion.Muntuwandi 16:23, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Your words describe the situation I found in Taiwan. Because of a passage in the Analects of Confucius they have the idea firmly in mind that "all men are brothers." So, on the one hand they are aware that all Chinese are genetically connected at some level, and on the other hand they know that even though the connections with other groups may be go back far in history if you are looking for a major nexus nevertheless the "outside people" are still brothers. People in Taiwan could be very passionate about their culture, politics and freedom, but I don't ever recall anybody being passionate about [race]. The aboriginal people living on Taiwan are remote from Chinese genetically and linguistically, and there is some level of discrimination involved, but I never heard the aboriginal people identified as belonging to a different race or identified as being materially different from Chinese in terms of intrinsic characteristics.

Which reminds me: What do we call the form of discrimination that was visited on the group given the derogatory term "Okies?" Those people were for the most part "white" and it was the poverty of the dust bowl era that set them apart. P0M 21:23, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

The only thing relevant is how race is actually used vis a vis intelligence discussion. For example, the fact that race on actual IQ tests is self-identified is relevant. How scientists understand race (self-identified? Or genetic?) when they do twin studies is relevant. How they think of race when they analyze IG data too is relevant. Let's stick to the topic. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:05, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

At the top of this discussion page there is a recommendation that it "should be expanded to include a worldwide view of the subject." Muntuwandi suggests, correctly I suspect, that the article cannot be expanded so as to make it have worldwide relevance. Other places have other ways of establishing which people in society to dump on. P0M 06:12, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

If you and Mutuwandi agree that the article cannot be expanded to make it have worldwide relevance, this topic is now closed, right? there is no need for further discussion?Slrubenstein | Talk 10:37, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

the reason the article cannot be expanded is because only in a few countries, such as the US or Canada, is race defined. The majority of countries do not take any statistics on race. If you see the IQ charts from developing countries, the information is basically "guestimated" by authors of the report. Therefore only data from the US has some reliability, the rest is redundant. my proposal is thus to remove all the data based discussion and to turn this article into a theoretical one describing scientific racism with regards to intelligence.Muntuwandi 11:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I do not see how you can do that without violating NOR. Be that as it may, this article has a clear objective and a number of people are working on it. Your proposal to change the page to something completely new is in my opinion futile or disruptive, although the page is under mediation and you are free to register your proposal there. Now, if you want to work on the article on scientific racism, why don't you just work on that article? Slrubenstein | Talk 12:00, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

This article is clearly biased. Have a look at the selection of differences in this template,

Their selection is almost deliberately designed to favour the white male and portray the Black Male unfavorably. Most of the articles are US centric, because that is the only way to achieve a bias. For example if one were to study race and crime in Russia or in China the results would be different. In addition there are several other group differences that have been ignored, eg Age and crime, Age and Intelligence, weight and intelligence etc. Only those differences that can portray the white male positively have been selected. This is Cherry picking.

The US cannot be used as a model for studying race because it has its own unique history. Without information from other countries the information becomes irrelevant because races live all over the world not just in the US.Muntuwandi 12:16, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Then add information to make the article less biased. however, if you want to make any major change (and completely changing the contents and title of the article counts as a major change) take it up with the mediator. If you are serious, you won't get anywhere leaving comments here, you need to involve yourself in the mediation. Slrubenstein | Talk 14:28, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe it will be quite a huge undertaking to change the article, since a lot has been written. But it needs to be done, one possible solution is to rename it "Race and IQ in the US". In certain circumstances or countries IQ tests are even illegal. That is why a discussion of race and intelligence needs more thinking and analysis than simply presenting a probability distribution curve. We know that Humans have great plasticity, they live in the desert and in the North pole. we also know that knowledge or "intelligence" is not fixed, it can rise and fall eg (Flynn effect). The ancient egyptians and other peoples knew the value of Pi thousands of years ago and were making sophisticated calculations, yet much of their work was forgotten or lost. The subject of intelligence is a complex one, too complex for us to base it a few simple curves written by some controversial authors. Muntuwandi 22:40, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, then I gather you will indeed take this up with the mediator. Slrubenstein | Talk 11:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Archiving

talk pages shouldn't be much longer than 35kb - I just did some archiving but this page is too long. I will archive again soon, so make sure that anything on the page that is still unresolved gets resolved soon, thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 15:12, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Worrysome bias in all these articles

One needs to be blind not to see the propaganda in all these articles. Wiki is a disgrace that is becoming a nest of white racialist propaganda.

It seems very difficult to make progress against ideas that some people love so dearly. It's like trying to rid the world of leprechauns. The only remedy I can see is to get the genetic basis of intelligence thoroughly worked out. Then there won't be an unsuported belief that somebody must be smarter than somebody else because of his/her [race]. People can just take a DNA sample, and the guy either has it or doesn't have it.

Look and see the obsession with comparing whites and blacks. Why no Asians and Whites, for example, since Asians are scoring higher that whites in IQ tests. Or why not concentrate on A. Jews that score much higher than other whites. Why not emphasize more that before the Flynn effect started in America whites scored 75 and now back Americans score 85, in spite of the fact of enjoying poorer socio-economic conditions? Some of this information is here, some is not, but just pay attention to the space devoted to each concept. 72.144.110.117 16:01, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

The way to get answers for your "whys" would be to involve yourself with the phenomenon dynamically. Perhaps that approach would give you a clearer understanding of why any imbalances in content exist.Unfortunately I do not believe that balancing authority against authority will ever do much to remove the biases of the people participating in the balancing. Enlightenment rarely comes from people piling Buddhist sutras on the opposite ends of a teeter-totter. But that is all we can do here, and I am about to get slapped down once more for not restricting myself to that very pursuit. P0M 07:20, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

It very clear that this article has lost its scientific integrity, race and intelligence originally had at least the 4 major races described but now it seems to have resorted to a crackpot dumping ground for fringe theories making no scientific cohesiveness. Maybe you should reclassified this article as fiction or return it to its original state To say the least this is a piece of Sh…….

Please sign your postings.

Please do not use bad language, even the kinds that leaves letters out. Putting in lots of affective content only makes it harder to get anything done. P0M 06:49, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I find it difficult to understand what you have written above. Why do you believe that the purported field of "race and intelligence" has scientific integrity? At what stage in the development of this article do you believe it had a (derivitive) scientific integrity? At what stage was the integrity lost, in your view? If we are required to report what purported experts in the field say, and to not think because to do so would constitute original research, then we are stuck with a lack of integrity whenever two authorities disagree. If you want integrity you must make yourself into a scientist and go after it. (Be sure to get published so we can quote you here.)

Race and skull capacity?

I am a biologist, physical or social/cultural anthropologist, sociologist, psychologist, or anything similar, so don't go off and start bashing me or anything.

However, recently I've read parts of Race: The Reality of Human Differences by Vincent Sarich and Frank Miele. I only have read parts of it because the book, as a whole, was a bore, but that's a different story. Anyways, the authors state in the book that race and skull capacity is linked, and that this assumption has been proven by recent MRI studies of "thousands of skulls." The only problem being is that they didn't cite their source.

So I was wondering if anyone could possibly provide a primary source for this information... It would be helpful and could add to this article. On the other hand, I'm not even sure if such a study with "thousands of skulls" has been conducted or not and if the authors were just saying something on a whim.

Lastly, if you decide to contribute to this comment, I'd be flabbergasted, but please don't post some old 19th century study that 'proves' racial skull differences or the study by Stephen Jay Gould proving otherwise. I'm just wondering if such a study using MRIs in the recent past has been conducted and if skull capacity and race has been linked in it. Encrypted Soldier 15:38, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

You may want to look this is in Google Scholar, but first and foremost there are two points which may make your info not as notable as you think

the racial differences in skull size are small, their significance is disputed and even the "variation by race" is disputed (look up Lieberman "How Caucasoids Got Such Large Crania and Why They Shrank: From Morton to Rushton"), and second the relationship of brain size to intelligence is also disputed (within the confines of human brain size variation). So, in any case you may want to consider twice the significance of what you read for this article.--Ramdrake 21:14, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

The only MRI scan study that I am aware of that has black and white samples for comparison is Harvey, Persaud, Ron, Baker and Murray (1994). Abstract here [3]. Discussed here “For example, using MRI technology, Harvey, Persaud, Ron, Baker, and Murray (1994) found that

41 Blacks in Britain averaged a smaller brain volume than did 67 British Whites”. It seems doubtful that the studies of thousands of skulls that they refer to are MRI Scan studies, more likely measurements of the cranial capacity of empty skulls. I might be wrong though. Hope that helps. Romper 21:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

The IQ graph with hispanics and asians along with black and white

Why it was removed in favor of the only black and white graph? A few time ago I saw that it was under discussion, but I hadn't have enough time to read and understand the points right. I recall reading the following two points: Hispanics are not quite a "race" and that the graph is not a exact copy of a graph found in any publication, so that would be original research.

I'd answer that, despite of Hispanics not being scientifically considerable a race of their own, they may be under the social concept of race, and even if not, comparisons of IQ scores between "just ethnic" groups would still be valuable to the issue of racial differences on intelligence. The exclusion seems to me, at first, an attempt of sweeping under the carpet the comparatively close IQ scores between Hispanics (nearly whites, genetically) and black people, at the same time that it puts the white scores at the top, as superior Asian IQ scores are not shown at the same time. (Additionally to the "Hispanics are not a biological race" argument, one could yet argue that neither "blacks" nor "African americans" are a statistically representative sample of all black-skinned or African-black populations, and ponder whether the data presented on the article refer more to the smaller sample, being thus more akin to "Hispanic" than to a true biological race)

As for being original research, as long as the data shown in the composite graph is not incorrect, i.e., the standards of IQ measures are considerably the same, there are not distortion of any kinds, it does not seems to be original research anymore that the text written for article is. It's just a graphical representation of data collected from referred sources, rather than textual. Extremophile 22:34, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Racism on Wikipedia and in these articles

I concur with the person who wrote this:

One needs to be blind not to see the propaganda in all these articles. Wiki is a disgrace that is becoming a nest of white racialist propaganda.

This article is a disgrace. It lacks sources. It makes wildly racist statements and should be deleted.

Why is racism so prevalent among Wikipedia editors? Why haven't the people who are editing this article removed all of the unsourced statements and made an attempt to balance the racist statements with known scholarship on this subject. Skywriter 00:48, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

As I tried to explain, one of the viewpoints on this subject is found among the racialists, and for a lot of people, can definitely smack of racism. However, this is not a reason to delete it; the constructive way to deal about it would be to bring in expert opinion contesting it, i.e. reviews that dispute the point based on other data sets and results. There is an abundance of these. If you find some of the passages to be too racist, I would suggest you bring them to the talk page for discussion. This might renew interest in editing this article and helping it move forward. However, wholesale deletion of points you disagree with does not help.--Ramdrake 01:01, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that proper references and sources must be cited, especially in controversial articles like this one. But if it is true, it's no longer racism. It's not racist to distinguish between races if there is a reasonable objective grounds for it. But indeed, this article needs way more research and proof. And before I get the full load, I do believe that generally there is an intelligence difference between races, but this is due to environmental and socio-economic factors. Jack the Stripper 11:37, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Specific questions about two reverts, made thoughtlessly and without care

this was the original:

In the 19th and early 20th centuries scientific racism theories became quite popular, justifying poor outcomes and treatment for "the inferior race." Some early opinions about the differences among races grew out of stereotypes about non-whites developed during the period of colonialism and

This was the improved version reverted twice:

In the 19th and early 20th centuries theories of scientific racism became popular with the effect of providing justification for poor treatment of black people who those theorists called "the inferior race." Some early opinions about alleged differences among races grew out of stereotypes of Asian and African people developed during the period of colonialism

My question: what is the basis for using the racialist term non-whites? Is this an accommodation to the racialists who are editing this article?

Most of the world is black, brown and yellow, not white. Why have the terms African and Asian been replaced by non-whites twice by user RamDrake? Is this an example of enforced racial bias on Wikipedia? How long will this continue?

To answer your question, "Whites" are mostly of European ancestry. "Non-Whites" are from anywhere and everywhere else, and does not apply only to Asians and Africans (it applies as well to Australoids, American Indians, Capoids, etc. Some other issues with your phrasing is the use of "alleged", which is a word to avoid. The sentence as it was already implies (through the use of the word "opinion" the subjectivity of such "differences". And also, the racist theories of the 19th and early 20th centuries were "accepted" as justifying the long-standing ideas of racial inequality. Your version suggest racial inequality wasn't an accepted fact until the 19th century, when in fact it probably goes back as long as history itself, and mentalities are just recently (give or take less than a century) "evolving" out of that notion. For these three reasons, I reverted the edit.--Ramdrake 01:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Why does the following claim lack a citation?:

Image:IQ 1sd gap overlap.png|thumb|265px|While the distributions of IQ scores among different racial-ethnic groups in the US overlap and often have a comparable range, groups differ in where their members cluster along the IQ scale.]]

I'll look for a proper reference.--Ramdrake 01:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Why is this densely written, deeply racist mumbo jumbo in this article at all and why is there not one single citation?

Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain why average IQ varies among racial-ethnic groups; most of them focus on environment ("nurture") and genetics ("nature"). Certain environmental factors, such as nutrition, are thought to moderate IQ in children, and other influences have been hypothesized, including education level, richness of the early home environment, the existence of caste-like minorities, socio-economic factors, culture, the effort gap, pidgin language barriers, quality of education, health, racism, lack of positive role-models, exposure to violence, the Flynn effect, sociobiological differences and stereotype threat. One focus of the scientific debate is whether group IQ differences also reflect a genetic component. Hereditarianism hypothesizes that a genetic contribution to intelligence could include genes linked to neuron structure or function, brain size or metabolism, or other physiological differences that could vary with biogeographic ancestry. There is also significant debate about exactly how environmental factors play their role in creating the gap and the interrelationships between these factors. Some researchers focus their attention on intervention techniques to close the gap.

Is the idea to strangle readers with bs and hope they believe it? Or is just a wink and a nod to other racialists, as is the ramdrake reference.

The fact is, raw IQ test score show that for instance Blacks perform more poorly on IQ tests than Whites. While this is pretty much accepted, the reasons for this are still being debated among scholars, and in fact there are a lot of different explanations, and the real reason may be a composite of several of the factors named here. All this is verifiable. It is not meant to be a racialist comment, but it is meant to circumscribe the scope of the debate.--Ramdrake 01:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Why did ramdrake delete this reference and alternate explanation for outcomes? whose work shows that discipline and not intelligence is a more accurate predictor of outcomes, such as future success.

The reference can certainly go back in, but this single reference cannot and should not be used to contradict the approximately 50+ papers by the racialist scholars you indicate. The corpus of scholarly papers contradicting their position is vastly wider than this, so the reference needs to be properly positioned. It would be like saying a single paper contradicts the evidence on global warming (bad analogy, but I hope I get the point across).--Ramdrake 01:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Why was this tight summary reverted? :

Some scholars assert that IQ tests do not measure what they purport to test. Others propose theories to explain variance among African Americans and some other ethnic minorities although Asian students are usually not included in the claims of racial inferiority in IQ among students.

Scholars point to crowded and underfunded inner city schools where many African American children study as contributing to the reasons why these children do not fare so well on intelligence tests. Others point to poor nutrition and hunger due to poverty. Others point to differences in income, parental education, and the richness of the early childhood experience enjoyed in households where income is not a problem.

The above summary was replaced with this exquisite example of too much verbiage and an utter failure to get to the point. It also makes controversial unsourced statement? Why is controversial unsourced statement that is also racist better than the above? One more thing-- what is this crap about "feel that comparing the intell of racial groups is unethical" -- they feel that? Did they not assert it or state it?

Lack of references.--Ramdrake 01:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Invented in the early 20th century, IQ tests have been strongly criticized, but are now considered to be relatively reliable, valid and stable measures of cognitive ability. Some critics question the fairness and validity of cognitive testing and racial categorization, as well as the reliability of the studies and the motives of the authors, on both sides. This has included accusations of bias based on the political ideals of the researchers or the funding agencies, such as the Pioneer Fund. Some critics such as Robert Sternberg, Stephen Jay Gould, Karen Lee and Gloria Ladson-Billings fear the misuse of the research, question its utility, or feel that comparing the intelligence of racial groups is itself unethical.

I take particular issue with this line and assert that it is both false and unsourced. Who said it? It is unacceptable to fail to cite a reference for this highly controversial claim.

IQ tests have been strongly criticized, but are now considered to be relatively reliable, valid and stable measures of cognitive ability.

Considered by whom? Or are readers to believe anonymous editor on faith alone.

I'll find you a reference for this too, but among psychometricians and psychologists in general, this is hardly controversial, unless you want to present references to the contrary? (which you are welcome to do)--Ramdrake 01:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Giving ramdrake the benefit of the doubt, for the moment, that this article is in mediation and changes will be reverted, even just and smart changes, then there should be a lock on the article so nobody wastes time. There also should be an explicit statement at the top of the article that this is a deeply racist article and a disgrace to the Wikiepdia project, and that editors who come there wanting to help modify it to remove some of the racist claptrap will be reverted. Skywriter 01:23, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Skywriter 01:23, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Skywriter, value judgment have no place on Wikipedia. We can't and shouldn't try to tell people what is "right" and what is "wrong", our job is just to report the opinions and the evidence to support or disprove it. To that effect, there is a warning atop this article that says "The neutrality and factual accuracy of this article or section are disputed.", as well as one atop the talk page that says "Discussions on this page may escalate into heated debate. Please try to keep a cool head when commenting here."

I understand what you're trying to do, and I agree in part with it; however, if you want your changes to stick, they need to be discussed first. What you just did on the talk page is the right way to do this; please have some patience and bear with the other editors and eventually a number of your changes will be incorporated into the article, I'm sure of it.--Ramdrake 01:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Ramdrake, you appear to be blind to the fact that what you put forward is a viewpoint based on your value judgment, reminding me of an old cartoon, a picture of three bears, with the caption "This is my opinion and it is very true."

If the term non-whites continues to be used in this article, then a flag should be placed at the top saying that this article is written from the perspective -- the viewpoint of some whites with a racialist outlook.

As to your comment to "bear with the other editors and eventually a number of your changes will be incorporated into the article, I'm sure of it." -- my reply is that I wish that were true but I am skeptical and, frankly, with years of experience on Wikipedia, I doubt it. I worked hard on the article on the ku klux klan and that article is controlled by racialists who removed and downgraded specific examples of racial terror, even examples from the 20th century. There was even an argument over whether the Klan is a racist terror group or whether or not the thrust of its activities was/is directed at black people. The entire series of articles on Reconstruction is also written from the white racialist perspective, despite multiple works of scholarship over the last 50 years that have overturned most of what appears in the articles about post-Civil War Reconstruction. References to scholarly work and congressional hearings on the Klan were repeatedly removed.

So keep to your insistence that non-whites is a proper term for an article such as this that contains other examples of crude racism that does not even bother to cite references. I will retain the stance, and tell everyone I know that racial supremacy is in charge at Wikipedia in articles that directly discuss and affect African-American people, and other minorities.

I am not pretending the term "non-whites" is the best term to use in the article. I was pointing out that your alternative, "Asians and Africans" fails to cover indigenous populations from at least two entire continents. --Ramdrake 12:39, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I find it hilarious that this article does not address the intelligence and outcomes of Asian people who are tested, and overlooks the inconvenient truths associated with that, by masking outcomes with references to non-whites.

If by that you meant the fact that many Asian people (esp. Southeast Asia) score higher than "Whites" on IQ tests, it is mentioned in the article.--Ramdrake 12:39, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I find the generalities in this article dishonest. This article is entirely one-sided in viewpoint, acknowledges in a token manner that there is opposition but fails to explore that opposition in any depth or with any rigor. And in every case, treats the opposition as an afterthought, and in each case failing to focus on the centrality of the arguments. Most dishonestly, this article fails to address the most serious opponents of the Murray-Herrnstein fiasco.

It is, in fact, the height of intellectual dishonesty that Murray and Herrnstein are quoted without acknowledging the arguments of William H. Tucker in counter-balancing their racialist ravings. It is disgusting but not unexpected for an article of this sort that champions the views of racialists, a common theme throughout Wikipedia. Tucker is not even referenced.

I am surprised only that Murray's recent article "Jewish Genius" in Commentary is missing from this badly written, flabby, overblown article that rests on the firm bedrock of racism. Murray's article concludes with the notion that God appointed Jews as "the chosen people."

I recommend that this article be deep-sixed because it is hopelessly wed to the racialist viewpoint.Skywriter 03:42, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

May I respectfully suggest that if you find that references to Tucker need to be added, you may add them yourself?--Ramdrake 12:39, 11 June 2007 (UTC)