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"Find"? -or "assert" or "believe"?

Under the heading "Critical response: The validity of IQ and general intelligence", it begins "William J. Matthews and Stephen Jay Gould (1994) find that the authors of The Bell Curve make four basic assumptions about intelligence:" Stating that Matthews and Gould "find" those four basic assumptions implies that those things are unequivocally there to be found. That's not the case here; in reality, Matthews and Gould believed or asserted that they found those four assumptions. To NPOV the sentence, it should be rephrased thus. Any objections? Bricology (talk) 17:06, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Go ahead with it. Generally, "X argues that..." or "according to X..." is the neutral way to present things. See WP:SAY.--Victor Chmara (talk) 18:36, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
Sounds good. Done. Bricology (talk) 05:36, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Refutation of content based on moral ground

Barber (2013) concludes that fears about its moral consequences do not count as evidence against The Bell Curve’s hypothesis. However, just two pages later—and after approvingly citing Kitcher’s (1985, 9) argument that we should require dangerous hypotheses to meet higher standards of evidence (p. 636, n. 4). Newby and Newby (1995)—Barber’s reference to support dismissing The Bell Curve as scientifically bankrupt dismisses The Bell Curve on moral grounds[1]. --The Master (talk) 01:15, 3 June 2016 (UTC)

The g-Factor of International Cognitive Ability Comparisons: The Homogeneity of Results in PISA, TIMSS, PIRLS and IQ-Tests Across Nations

HEINER RINDERMANN* Institute of Psychology, Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, Germany

Factor analyses were done with MPLUS statistical software using Full-InformationMaximum-Likelihood (FIML; Raykov, 2005). This kind of analysis allows for the use of all data (no listwise deletion of a country and all its information if one observation in one variable is missing). In a factor analysis the first unrotated factor (g-factor) explained 94% (unadjusted) or 95% (adjusted) of the variance of the 20 student assessment scales and the intelligence test collection of Lynn and Vanhanen (see Table 1 and Figure 1 a,b).

http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/The-g-factor-of-international-cognitive-ability-comparisons-the-homogeneity-of-results-in-PISA-TIMSS-PIRLS-and-IQ-tests-across-nations.pdf

This research actually wallidates the work of Lynn and Vanhanen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 51.174.230.34 (talk) 19:00, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Gould statement was attributed, so i reverted it back

I reverted the removal of some content because the statement was attributed to Gould, and therefore was not in Wikivoice, so if it's what Gould said then its use is valid. The edit reason conflicted with this analysis so i think the edit by the IP user was not a good one for the reasons stated. SageRad (talk) 00:47, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Genes and upbringing

How much of the difference between whites and blacks in IQ does the book say is due to genes vs. due to upbringing? By genes, I mean something "heritable" only by unreadable codes in your DNA. By upbringing, I mean not only how your parents raise you, but also how relatives, teachers, neighbors, and society in general treat you.

I would like to see some quotes from the book - other than two sentences saying vaguely that:

  1. "It seems highly likely to us that both genes and the environment have something to do with racial differences." and
  2. "The debate about whether and how much genes and environment have to do with ethnic differences remains unresolved."

Did the authors really write that most of the racial IQ differences were due to genetics? If so, where is a quote from the book about this? And where is the reasoning the authors used to support this (attributed) view? Prominent critic Stephen Jay Gould says they said it; is that good enough?

Here, let me help: did the authors imply that - having exhausted every possible known factor influencing IQ - whatever differences remain must therefore inevitable be due to our genes? Or is this an assumption made by critics? --Uncle Ed (talk) 14:10, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

  • I've added two quotes from Gould, where he says that the book authors have said something - but without quoting them! So is this something he gleans from his extensive reading of the book, some sort of obvious implication that anyone with an ounce of sense can read between the lines? Or is there actually a passage in the book where the authors come out and say MOST IQ DIFFERENCES ARE GENETIC?
  • Otherwise, it sounds like Gould is making a straw man argument: the book's authors are racists because they say race alone - i.e., your genes - determine your IQ, and that therefore discrimination is justified. Now, I'm not saying we should out Gould, or brand him. I just want to know whether it's
    1. the book itself says race drives IQ, or
    2. Gould assumes the authors hold this view

Gould's characterization of the book's (supposed) claims

This statement seems to endorse Gould's interpretation, and thus his side in the controversy:

In 1996 Stephen Jay Gould released a revised and expanded edition of his 1981 book The Mismeasure of Man, intended to more directly refute many of The Bell Curve's claims regarding race and intelligence,

It makes Wikipedia seem to agree with Gould that the authors claimed that most of the difference between black and white IQ scores is due to race - a view which Gould provides no quote for and which Murray has publicly rebutted.

I think we should distinguish between:

  1. Views or assumptions which the Bell Curve authors have explicitly put in writing, and
  2. Those which critics have imputed to them

Fair enough? --Uncle Ed (talk) 15:08, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

A milder approach

Okay, maybe the above was too shrill. How about just saying that Murray and Gould disagreed about what the book's assumptions were. We could list a few of what Gould said the authors were assuming, and compare that to what the authors said their assumptions were (either in the book or in response to Gould). Maybe a table would be good. --Uncle Ed (talk) 15:32, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Straw men

It would be a lot of fun to read - but way too much work for me to compile a list of books which seem to find in The Bell Curve ideas which Murray swears up and down he never said. Here's one I picked from a random book ref at the end of the article:

  • They refute the claims of the incendiary bestseller The Bell Curve (1994) through a clear, rigorous re-analysis of the very data its authors, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, used to contend that inherited differences in intelligence explain inequality. (emphasis added for talk page) [1]

Unless the article is poorly written - and the author himself is lying about what his views are - then he never said that inherited differences alone explain inequality. Rather, his carefully crafted and nuanced viewpoint is that we have no justification for saying it's all genes or all environment or anything in between. That is, we simply don't know.

It's even more significant that class and wealth. (If he says anything different, can we PLEASE have quotes from his book which contradict this?) --Uncle Ed (talk) 02:29, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

bad, stupid short sections

What is going on with this article? there are two sections of the article which are just like 2 sentences, presented out of context... vandalism or work by some new editor who doesn't get wikipedia. I'll try to delete them, but if someone thinks they are important they can actually write a section around them rather than just putting an isolated quote.

Sections: Multiple intelligences Genes and intelligence — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.175.141.8 (talk) 13:19, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

LOL, you left out "deplorable". I moved the quotes you deleted, so that they are no longer isolated duplicates of Murray's rebuttal to Gould. I also put three sections of criticism into a new sub-section about assumptions which critics say the book makes but which Charles Murray denies making.
In fact, a lot of the controversy over the book is about outrageous notions that people:
  1. seem to think the authors are saying, and which
  2. most people - including the authors - disagree with!
It's like, since the authors dared to start the conversation, every bad idea is attributed to them. They say, "We aren't 100% sure that it's not race" so that gets turned into "He's a racist who says it's all determined by your genes!!" --Uncle Ed (talk) 18:05, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
Adding direct quotes from an interview is not the right way to address this - it was right to remove these sections. The article should be based on reliable secondary sources - including the critical ones - regardless of whether we (or the aurhots) think the critique is off the mark.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 18:38, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
Really, what does Wikipedia policy say about a situation where (a) some critics claim that a book advances idea X, but (b) they provide no quotes and (c) the author denies advancing X and (d) provides a quote from his own book which contradicts X?
I won't edit war over this, but I don't think Wikipedia should side with either Gould - who says the book contains the 4 assumptions, or Murray - who says that he disagrees with those assumptions. Your call. --Uncle Ed (talk) 18:46, 12 March 2017 (UTC)
There is an entire literature about the Bell Curve and it's claims. That is the literature we should summarize in this article.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 07:18, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
I agree. I'd love to quote from both sides in that literature. Even if 99% of the people who have critiqued the book say that authors reduce intelligence to a single number and attribute X% of black-white intelligence differences to genes - while only 1% of that literature says it's just the opposite. At least we can say that most reviewer/critics find these things in the book, but a handful deny that these things are in the book. (I don't know. I have yet to dig into the extensive literature about the book; I've been more concerned about what's in the book.) --Uncle Ed (talk)
The book is a primary source regarding itself - that is why books about the book are preferable sources. And there are lots of those.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:58, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
whatever. I, (who started this talk subsection) have no horse in this race (except the horse of encyclopedic content), and I don't know what you're talking about with all these bold faced words and quoted words and your arguments against invisible people in the talk section who aren't here. I just don't like to see badly written articles. Having those isolated quotes as an entire section was objectively just obtuse. What is there now is slightly less obtuse. It's obvious you have some big point you want to make and you'd be better off writing it in your personal blog, but if it turns out to be anything coherent for wikipedia you should develop it into an actual paragraph that cites the interview instead of just reprinting chucks of it. That way, people who read it will be better able to actually understand what the significance of what you're trying to say is, and it won't sound like someone's imaginary debate with strawman versions of what they imagine Murray's critics to be like, or something. Anyway as I said it is an improvement. Thanks 98.159.211.12 (talk) 21:38, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
That's actually a good description of my editing style, and I hate the fact that my writing sucks. I wish I could just write that actual paragraph you're asking for. --Uncle Ed (talk) 02:02, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

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How much race determines intelligence

There are two main ideas in play in the race and intelligence controversy, relevant to The Bell Curve.

  1. the notion that race determines intelligence, because intelligence is in our genes and therefore no one can reduce the black-white gap; and,
  2. the assertion (unfounded?) that BC's authors believe in this notion

I think a lot of the confusion arises from failure to distinguish between these two ideas. Moreover, based on my own reading of the book (years ago) and my recent glances at interviews of Charles Murray, I'm beginning to question idea #2. For example, Murray told AEI:

  • I’m convinced that the convergence of IQ scores for blacks and whites born before the early 1970s was substantial, though there’s still room for argument.

What he's talking about is a substantial decrease in the black-white intelligence gap. If he believed it to be immutable (before?), he certainly no longer believes it. The scores can't converge if black intelligence is genetically programmed to be lower than whites; which is probably why he never said that it was.

We need to dig into this more, and find out what happened in the 20th century (A) which reduced this gap and (B) which no produced no further reduction. I'm not sure whether M and H ever touched on this, but I'm guessing it has something to do with education or with the notion of "expectation" (by parents, relatives, teachers, or society in general). Have there been any studies? --Uncle Ed (talk) 15:04, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Again, there is a gigantic literature on this subject including lots of studies of the kinds you inquire about. You can find a lot of them in the bibliography for the Race and intelligence article. This is however not a page for sharing speculation or ideas for future research.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 20:53, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
I really don't know what to say here. The ignorance of your post is astounding. Nobody said the gap was 100% genetic. Probably you should look at Jim Flynn re. gap narrowing, causes. You just understand nothing. Ethicosian (talk) 20:25, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
Aren't there two quotes from Murray (or his co-authored book) on the extent to which race (i.e., genes) determines intelligence? That is all we need to put in the article.
Unless we want to compare Murray's (I dunno, 20 to 80 percent & there's really no way to tell) with what critics say or what objective third parties say ... --Uncle Ed (talk) 12:11, 22 March 2017 (UTC)

Nature versus Nurture

Clearly, some of the concepts discussed here are the same as found in the Nature versus Nurture debate so prominent during the 20th Century. (It is now generally thought to be naive to attempt to disentangle nature and nurture). A link to the debate should be added of this article.72.16.99.93 (talk) 17:58, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Isn't this article way too long?

Why on earth is a 25 year old book given such as lengthy article? Not many books have their own Wikipedia articles? And disturbingly, I found it when searching for an explanation of a bell curve, as in the general term, the diagram showing normal distribution. It's quite disturbing to have a lengthy debate about race and intelligence pop up as the no 2 hit on Google for "bell curve". How is this book notable enough for an entry? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lijil (talk • contribs) 10:52, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Putting aside the question of how long is too long, the book has attracted a large amount of criticism which is noteworthy of itself. Simply covering the book's contents would ignore that. In addition the number of years since it was written is hardly relevant to how long an article should be. Does the Bible or a Shakespeare play deserve a shorter article because they were written many years ago? "The Bell Curve" is literally the name of the book, why wouldn't it appear high on a Google search for "bell curve"? Besides, if someone finds a debate about race and intelligence to be "disturbing", they're gonna have a tough time on the internet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.174.155.84 (talk) 13:21, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Cool dude. Take up your dispute with, uhh, the Basic Functioning Precepts about how Search Engines Actually work. Additionally, why in the realm of g*d, would you personally care that there is more information in this document versus less information in this document? Many questions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.198.41.234 (talk) 06:17, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Move AFQT criticism up?

I'd propose moving the section about AFQT criticism up. It is by far the strongest criticism, but reading the article it gets buried by what comes before it. 23.246.70.101 (talk) 21:46, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

+1 to this. Generalrelative (talk) 15:51, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Another reference

Recommended by statistician Cosma Shalizi [2]:

  • Glymour, Clark (1998). "What Went Wrong? Reflections on Science by Observation and The Bell Curve" (PDF). Philosophy of Science. 65: 1–32.

This reference is no longer available.Bradford Caslon (talk) 21:26, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Rindermann source

CLOSED
Editor who proposed this has been blocked as a sock. –dlthewave ☎ 04:14, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The Rindermann source is not fringe. From this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Race_and_intelligence#Inclusion_of_Rindermann_survey "The peer-reviewed literature "Survey of Expert Opinion on Intelligence: Causes of International Differences in Cognitive Ability Tests" quite literally does represent the general scientific consensus, as it is a survey of the general consensus of scientific experts. This is the opposite of WP:FRINGE. First, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_70#RfC_on_race_and_intelligence

the above link does discuss Rindermann, but in the context of supporting Lynn's or others' work, as opposed to being used soley on its own. Second, the consensus on Rindermann, if existent, is that the survey is reliable. This has already been discussed, please see the link above. Also, Rindermann's other works or personal views are irrelevant to the peer-reviewed survey which doesn't describe and is not relevant to Rindermann's own views.--DishingMachine (talk) 22:56, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

The Rindermann source is indeed fringe in this context. Surveying non-geneticists on their opinion of whether genes cause between-group differences in IQ test performance yields zero explanatory power for the purposes for which you're seeking to use it (something that even Rindermann admits in the study). This has been gone over extensively, not just at the RfC you've linked to, as has been explained to you at Talk:Race and intelligence. The other issue is that you're seeking to include it here despite it having no direct bearing on the book The Bell Curve. The implication you appear to be making, that this survey supports a positive view of that book's argument, is what we call WP:SYNTH, and it is prohibited for a number of reasons. Generalrelative (talk) 23:55, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
First off, I disagree with the notion that the Rindermann source is fringe in this context, as it is surveying cognitive scientists regarding their beliefs on the determinant factors of cognitive ability. This seems appropriate. It has been published in a peer-reviewed journal, and the methods used by the source have been cited by works published in reputable journals. It should be noted that the effect of "genes" on intelligence seems to be non-controversial in cases of genetic disorder, so I don't understand where the a priori opposition to the use of this source comes from.
Second off, I believe that a close reading of WP:SYNTHNOT (in particular, "SYNTH is not presumed") rules out the use of WP:SYNTH here to challenge the use of the Rindermann source.
Third and finally, the authors of the study note that, regarding the difference in cross-national intelligence, "while genes were rated as the most important single factor, there was considerable diversity of opinion: 10 of 60 experts gave genes a rating of zero (17%), and the standard deviation in ratings for genes was the highest of all factors (SD = 24.88; all other factors: SD < 10)." The fact there is significant variance was not included in the paper by accident, and the fact that the study found that one-in-six deny ANY influence of genes on cross-national intelligence is noteworthy if we are going to properly represent the source. Mikehawk10 (talk) 21:09, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Mikehawk10, This survey was discussed at the RFC DishingMachine linked above, and several times in the archives of Talk:Race_and_intelligence. There are several problems with it - in particular the response rate and likely Selection bias. Most importantly, it was being used to support the position that the RFC consensus has found to be a fringe position. A little bit of edit warring and a talk page discussion cannot be used to overturn that RFC. MrOllie (talk) 21:19, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
MrOllie is entirely correct. I probably shouldn't have given any reasons here at all, and simply directed the OP to keep the conversation about this survey on one page. Given the consensus among editors here that this source misrepresents the scientific consensus, there's no need for us to debate whether it constitutes SYNTH in this instance. Generalrelative (talk) 21:31, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Chomsky's criticism needs a better example.

Chomsky's argument that "heritability does not have to be genetic" is either a semantic disagreement or a misunderstanding of biology. Per wikipedia's article on heritability, "broad-sense heritability" is defined as "all the genetic contributions to a population's phenotypic variance including additive, dominant, and epistatic (multi-genic interactions), as well as maternal and paternal effects, where individuals are directly affected by their parents' phenotype, such as with milk production in mammals." In the same wikipedia article, narrow-sense heritability is "the genetic component of variance responsible for parent-offspring resemblance". So by commonly accepted definitions, heritability is genetic. Therefore the example from Block, which Chomsky quotes, of a "heritable" trait that is not genetic (wearing earrings) is incorrect. Wearing earrings “some years ago when only women wore earrings" was NOT a heritable trait because a women does not inherit her female sex from her mother. She is female because she has 2 X chromosomes, one from each parent. Unless there is a better example of the point he is trying to make (or from Ned Block, a philosopher who specializes in defining consciousness), or a more substantial argument from Chomsky, the value of this section is dubious. There are plenty of more valid counterarguments that can be cited.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.70.132.109 (talk • contribs) 16:34, April 7, 2021 (UTC)

Since this is not a fair summary of Chomsky's argument, anything more than a quick rebuttal would be misplaced.
The "common" definition is wrong: "The term ‘heritability,’ as it is used today in human behavioral genetics, is one of the most misleading in the history of science. Contrary to popular belief, the measurable heritability of a trait does not tell us how ‘genetically inheritable’ that trait is."[3] Chomsky certainly knew this as well, since that's part of the context of the cited quote.
Any further discussion of changes to the article should avoid WP:OR, but Chomsky was far from the only one to point out this deep flaw in the book, regardless of which examples he used. Grayfell (talk) 03:24, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

factually inaccurate representation of book in article

Discussion has veered irreparably into challenging the 2020 RFC, which unambiguously found that the claim that there are genetic differences in intelligence along racial lines a WP:FRINGE viewpoint. That RFC cannot be challenged here per WP:CONLOCAL; any further discussion needs to go on WP:FRINGEN or some similar noticeboard
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

In describing the inaccuracies of TBC's press coverage, the article mirrors them. It reads [emphasis mine throughout]:

  • "The authors were reported throughout the popular press as arguing that these IQ differences are strictly genetic, when in fact they attributed IQ differences to both genes and the environment."

It goes on to quote the portion of the book in question:

  • "The debate about whether and how much genes and environment have to do with ethnic differences remains unresolved"
  • "It seems highly likely to us that both genes and the environment have something to do with racial differences."

In short: the authors stated that it's unresolved whether genes contribute anything at all the to racial IQ gaps, but that they personally believe that it's likely they contribute at least something. To paraphrase that as "they attributed IQ differences to both genes and the environment" is flatly untrue—one cannot be said to have "attributed X to Y" while one simultaneously states Y may have had no effect at all on X.

For that reason, I edited the article to say: "...when in fact they only claimed there was a likelihood that IQ differences were affected by both genes and the environment." That seemed to me the fairest encapsulation—the quote speaks for the rest. Or one can get rid of the Wikivoice altogether, and simply include the quotes as rebuttal to the false claims.

My edit was reverted, ostensibly because "the earlier wording was clearer and more accurate, as the reader can judge from the direct quotation".

I have no idea what the second clause means ("as the reader can judge")—but it's in no way "more accurate" to claim the authors attributed race differences in IQ to genes when they stated in clear English that it's unknown whether genes have contributed anything at all to those differences. There is no excuse for factually incorrect information in an article, and the fact that "the reader can judge for themself" based on a direct quotation is no defense of inaccuracy and false statements in Wikivoice. The article says something that is demonstrably untrue—ironically enough, in a section that attempts to describe all the untrue statements made about the article subject.

Barring some convincing explanation of how it's "more accurate" to say the authors "attributed differences to genes"—when in fact they flatly stated that it was unresolved whether genes contributed anything to those differences—I will undo the reversion. Thanks! Elle Kpyros (talk) 05:37, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

There is possibly some over reliance on Murray's post at AEI in that section, that can be shortened, but if we are quoting that, his final point has also been made by several third parties (including ideological opponents) and is more important than many of the back and forth details that do get space: "in all the critiques of The Bell Curve in particular and my work more generally, no one ever accompanies their charges with direct quotes of what I’ve actually said". Three such parties that come to mind are Sam Harris in his podcast a few years ago, one of Vox's own reporters commenting on Vox's hit piece on Murray and Harris (the article by Harden, Nisbett and Turkheimer cited in multiple Wikipedia pages) that resulted from that, and one of the responses that Harden et al quoted in their followup piece that was forced by this observation, i.e., that their article attacking Murray did not include a single quotation of his own words from either the podcast or the book.
I agree, though, that the position of Murray and Herrnstein in the book should not be presented as being more definite than it was, and the simplest way to do that is to quote them in full and let their statements speak for themselves. Sesquivalent (talk) 06:40, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
I went ahead and removed the phrase altogether, along with the unsourced preceding clause The authors were reported throughout the popular press as arguing that these IQ differences are strictly genetic.... The entire section on Race and Intelligence, however, remains a train-wreck of false balance. More work to be done. Generalrelative (talk) 06:48, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
Update: I've made a bit of progress shoveling out the manure but the section's still a mess. Generalrelative (talk) 07:03, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
The Bob Herbert quote should not be the finale of the article. The Gardner quote that had been in that position until today was fair, accurate and worked very well as a coda to the article. Herbert's statement is the single most negative thing published about the book in any major venue, and it belongs to the first wave of enraged but superficial denunciations. This article gives space to Nicholas Lemann's explanation of why the first responses were of that nature (advance copies of the book had not been sent out, and the regression analyses were new and undigested for another year) whereas Gardner's piece is a long and relatively academic review that engages with the content and clearly demonstrates that he had read the book in detail (he claims to have reread it as well). Besides all this, putting the Herbert quote at the end reads like a blatant attempt to end the article with a dramatically worded accusation tying the book to the word "nigger" as a theatrical climax ending. Sesquivalent (talk) 07:54, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

"purported" in lede

  • I think Bob Herbert's quote should be excised altogether: it's a bombastic and unserious critique and undeserving of inclusion. In any case, concluding with it trivializes the serious arguments.
  • I see there was a discussion above about surveys by Rindermann, et al. I do think they merit inclusion—it's a bit churlish to claim they aren't representative of "experts" in the field of intelligence while quoting the opinions of paleontologist Stephen J. Gould, linguist Noam Chomsky, et al. Ditto for the complaints that TBC wasn't peer-reviewed—it wasn't a journal article, and the vast majority of its criticism referenced here wasn't peer-reviewed, either. I don't really see how the Pioneer Fund stuff adds anything, either—it's not a critique of the book's substance. What's wrong with sticking to substantive critiques?
  • Part of the article acknowledged the very real racial gaps in IQ: "parts of the book which dealt with racial group differences on IQ". Yet elsewhere the article is squeamish: in the lead (" purported connections between race and intelligence") and later ("statistical data making the assertion that blacks were, on average, less intelligent than whites"). The fact is that, as measured by IQ, blacks are on average less intelligent than whites—so while it's good to clarify that "intelligence" in TBC is measured by IQ, using weasel-words like "purported" and "assertion" serves no purpose other than editorializing in Wikivoice.
Thanks for everyone's input! Elle Kpyros (talk) 04:57, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
This is almost breathtaking in its backwardness: The fact is that, as measured by IQ, blacks are on average less intelligent than whites—so while it's good to clarify that "intelligence" in TBC is measured by IQ, using weasel-words like "purported" and "assertion" serves no purpose other than editorializing in Wikivoice. Suffice it to say we will not be changing the article in any way to give credence to WP:RACISTBELIEFS. The word "purported" is there precisely to avoid doing so. I'm pretty sure the rest of the above comment can simply be ignored as wildly misinformed. Generalrelative (talk) 06:39, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
I agree that "purported" is an inappropriate weasel word here. The black-white IQ gap is an uncontroversial, well-documented fact. Stonkaments (talk) 10:25, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
The article does not say that the black-white IQ gap is "purported"; it uses the word "purported" as follows: "purported connections between race and intelligence". The notion that IQ is the same as intelligence is widely disputed among experts. It would be a gross violation of WP:NPOV and WP:FRINGE to assert as a fact in wikivoice that intelligence is connected to race. NightHeron (talk) 12:38, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
NightHeron is correct that this is the operative distinction here. The mainstream view on the matter is summed up by
  • IQ tests are valid measures of the kind of intelligence necessary to do well in academic work. But if the purpose is to assess intelligence in a broader sense, the validity of IQ tests is questionable.[4]
  • and to base a concept of intelligence on test scores alone is to ignore many important aspects of mental ability.[5]
Any time we report the views of someone who fails to observe this distinction, claiming instead that blacks are on average less intelligent than whites, we will be adding "purported" or something similar to distinguish their view from the mainstream one. Calling this "weasel wording" is either careless reading of the current debate or else careless reading of WP:WEASEL. In either case, more care is needed in order to contribute constructively to this topic area. Generalrelative (talk) 15:34, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
Nobody is arguing that IQ is synonymous with intelligence; IQ tests are estimates of intelligence. And for all the hand-wringing and criticism, I have yet to see any other intelligence test that is nearly as predictive or reliable. Elsewhere on Wikipedia, IQ says: "Despite these objections, clinical psychologists generally regard IQ scores as having sufficient statistical validity for many clinical purposes." And, even if you think IQ only measures "the kind of intelligence necessary to do well in academic work", do you think that type of intelligence might be an important predictor of educational achievement and income? 15:58, 15 November 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stonkaments (talk • contribs)
Nobody is arguing that IQ is synonymous with intelligence –– Excellent, then there is nothing more to discuss here. I trust that you will be striking your previous comment which misconstrued the issue, since it's now clear to you that we're not discussing differences in average IQ test performance but rather purported differences in intelligence. As for the rest, I'm not super jazzed about the prospect of debating basic epistemic fallacies with you, e.g. assuming that incomplete assessments represent valid "estimates", or that measurability is a measure of reality –– which would imply that, for instance, a person's "net worth" is in fact their worth as a human being –– so I'll just note them and move on. We're certainly not here to discuss what I think. We're here to discuss how best to present mainstream views based on reliable sources (from the context it seems as though you're unaware that green text is quotation, in this case from two top-quality sources; these are their views, not mine). Generalrelative (talk) 16:18, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
I'm afraid you may have misunderstood my previous comment, because there's nothing to strike from it. IQ tests are a valid measure of intelligence (in fact, the best measure of intelligence that we have available); therefore, large and well-documented racial differences in IQ indicate a connection between race and intelligence. Simple as that. No amount of hand-wringing over definitions or sophistry about epistemic fallacies will change that fact. Stonkaments (talk) 21:43, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
If you're going to describe my effort to explain to you why you're wrong as hand wringing then you don't deserve to be spoken to like a grown-up anymore. You've completely ignored the top-quality sources I presented and instead insisted on relying on your own ability to reason from the armchair. Generalrelative (talk) 01:44, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
Simple as that. You have a lot to learn about statistics. I don't know if you should start with reading Confounding factor or have a look at the more basic stuff first, but "confounding factor" is what you should be looking for. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:53, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
@Generalrelative: My error: it's apparently listed as the opposite of weasely: WP:DOUBT. Thanks for the education! Elle Kpyros (talk) 19:10, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
You mean MOS:DOUBT. (WP:DOUBT is something else entirely.) It says, Words such as supposed, apparent, alleged, and purported can imply that a given point is inaccurate, which is exactly what it should do in this case. The intro of MOS:WTW says, certain expressions should be used with caution. We already do that. We apply the word "purported" because it is appropriate here. --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:43, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
^^^ Precisely this. Generalrelative (talk) 04:33, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
Should it not be "purported genetic connections between race and intelligence"? The "black-white IQ gap" (which is in reality not a "gap", which suggests two bell curves with no overlap between them, but rather a small shift between two strongly overlapping bell curves) is literally a connection between race and intelligence. The consensus is that the causation runs from race to social and economic status, from social and economic status to education, and from social and economic status and education to intelligence, right? --Hob Gadling (talk) 14:25, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
The connection is "purported" for at least two reasons: there's no clear scientific consensus on how to define "intelligence", and, secondly, The Bell Curve, when speaking about the purported connection, assumes that there's likely to be a genetic component in it, a belief that is not supported by any scientific evidence. Perhaps we could insert "partially genetic". Of course, "connection" could mean different things to different people, which I suppose is another reason to qualify it with "purported". In short, none of the 3 terms "connection", "race", or "intelligence" has a clear scientific definition. NightHeron (talk) 14:54, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
I agree that "purported genetic connections between race and intelligence" makes the most sense, as that is the cause of (most of) the controversy. Stonkaments (talk) 14:57, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
With that wording (or with "partially genetic") it wouldn't be clear that the whole discussion of a connection between race and intelligence is problematic because of the lack of clarity on what the terms mean, not only because the genetic theory is fringe. So I'd be in favor of keeping the wording as it is. Otherwise, I think we'd need more explanation, and that would be too much detail for the lede. NightHeron (talk) 15:03, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
Race and intelligence goes into ample detail into the "problematic" nature of the terminology in discussing these connections; this article is not the place to hash that out. You're essentially saying we should add "purported" as an expression of MOS:DOUBT over the legitimacy of the terms themselves, and any connections that can be drawn between them, which is not appropriate for an encyclopedia.
By that logic, we would need to qualify every mention of the word "race" or "intelligence" in the article with purported—"those with purported high intelligence", etc. Stonkaments (talk) 15:24, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
Nonsense. See my comment with the two quotes above for an explanation of the correct use of words like "purported". Generalrelative (talk) 15:41, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
Oh right! Only "race" and "intelligence" were on my vagueness radar. Now that you mention it, "connection" has the same weakness. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:07, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
To respond to Stonkaments' last comment, certainly not all claims about race or claims about intelligence are problematic, so mentions of those words are not normally preceded by "purported". However, any claimed connection between race and intelligence (which are 3 vague words, none of which has a well-defined scientific meaning) is problematic. By connection many people mean correlation. Here's an example of something I'd never say except to make a pedagogical point about this: "A far lower percentage of Black people than white people voted for Trump in 2020, and a far lower percentage of Black people than white people believed the stolen election lie. It seems that Black people on average are superior to white people in the type of intelligence that's vital in a democracy." Statements of that sort, whether white-supremacist or Black-supremacist, are misleading and unscientific, and they often just reflect the speaker's desire to promote one race and denigrate another race. NightHeron (talk) 17:59, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
So we're in agreement then that IQ tests, the most reliable and predictive test of intelligence that we have, have shown a large and well-documented gap between black and white IQs. But any claims that this gap indicates any sort of connection between race and intelligence is "problematic". Gotcha. Stonkaments (talk) 21:10, 15 November 2021 (UTC)
No, haven't you noticed? We're in complete disagreement regarding your POV on R&I. It's a fringe POV that has been rejected again and again by the scientific mainstream.
IQ tests are a great measure of intelligence if one defines intelligence to be that which is measured by IQ tests.
Anyone who has ever studied science should understand that a correlation does not imply a meaningful connection. That's basic logic. NightHeron (talk) 02:10, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
The funny thing about facts is they have a habit of still being true even if you don't believe in them. Stonkaments (talk) 02:42, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
And it ain't the stuff you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's the stuff you're damn sure of that just ain't so. Please read WP:TRUTH and drop the stick now. Generalrelative (talk) 02:57, 16 November 2021 (UTC)



As I understand it,
1. Elle Kpyros suggests to remove terms like "purport" and "suggest" in the above quotations as improper editorials, provided that either "intelligence" is replaced by "IQ", or there is sufficient clarification when rewriting the statements that in the book intelligence refers to IQ". (Or does not object to such clarifications, which comes to the same thing, i.e., an objection to the editorialized doubt, not a demand to make the statement as about "intelligence" without qualification.)
2. Hob Gadling's suggestion of "purported genetic" is acceptable to me and Stonkaments (by direct statement) and (apparently) everyone but EKpyros
3. My suggestion of "purported likelihood of a genetic..." would seem to satisfy everyone (though I continue to maintain that purported twice in one sentence is overkill).
I am happy with any of those, but Generalrelative should strike the outrageous accusation based on #1 that people here are proposing to state in Wikivoice "blacks are less intelligent than whites" or defending such a proposal. Sesquivalent (talk) 08:33, 22 November 2021 (UTC)


What I wrote has prompted some heated discussion—and so to broadly respond:

  • Genetic causes of race differences in intelligence haven't been established to a level of scientific certainty—which is exactly what TBC stated. Genetic causes were not purported by H&M (see beginning of this thread), so adding "genetics" to the sentence in question would misrepresent the book and be factually incorrect. As per my original edit, it is baldly false to claim that TBC "purports" that B/W IQ differences have a genetic cause. The authors make clear they think genetics likely makes some unknown contribution—but they're exquisitely clear that they do not claim it does.
  • @Stonkaments: makes excellent points. TBC is premised on the statement "IQ scores match, to a first degree, whatever it is that people mean when they use the word intelligent, or smart in ordinary language." By their definition, blacks are on average less intelligent than whites. Others claim that IQ tests do not measure what's commonly considered "intelligence"—or even argue there is no such quality of intelligence and/or that it can't be quantified—and these people appear to tightly control and jealously guard this article's editing. But if we were to follow their guidance, much of the article (and a host of others) would be objectionable, if not outright "incorrect"—beginning with the first sentence:: "...the authors argue that human intelligence is substantially influenced by both inherited and environmental factors and that it is a better predictor of many personal outcomes…" H&M's argument is premised on IQ scores (and similar measures)—so if IQ doesn't measure human intelligence, how is that sentence acceptable in Wikivoice?
  • @Sesquivalent: also contributes pointedly: no one who accepts that IQ tests have even basic validity claims that blacks don't have lower average intelligence than whites—they simply euphemize it, as do Turkenheimer, et al. in acknowledging as a "deficit in cognitive ability". Note the response: because of the absence of any agreed upon definition of connection, race, or intelligence… it's absurd to call it a "fact". This tendentious and unhelpful assertion illuminates the crux of the issue:
  • To suggest that racial differences in intelligence don't exist because "race" and "intelligence" lack "any agreed-upon definition" is pure sophistry and makes building a accurate encyclopedia impossible. Doing so flatly contradicts the "scientific consensus" that has become the trier of fact for much of Wikipedia. The simple truth is that—in the scientific world, in Wikipedia, and amongst the public—IQ tests are broadly accepted to measure (albeit imperfectly) what is commonly called "intelligence". A cursory glance at our other articles reveals this to be true: that IQ tests measure intelligence isn't hotly debated in, for example, the Sex differences in intelligence article—since men and women have roughly equal average intelligence, there's no need for "social-justice" crusaders to distort or disappear the truth. Race and sports doesn't begin by claiming race is a construct with no established meaning, and thus nothing can be said about a "connection" between race and sports. Only in the context of Race and intelligence does the word "intelligence" (along with "race") become so ineffable as to be unquantifiable, if not outright indefinable—obviously because the very real racial differences in average intelligence are too malodorous and unpalatable for some. There is a cadre of editors who police R&I and related articles, making sure they don't reflect the obvious truth—which in turn, makes those articles incompatible with the rest of the encyclopedia. This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed in order to have accurate, consistent, and NPOV articles. Obscuring or omitting the truth because it is reminiscent of ugly history or makes people uncomfortable is no way to build an encyclopedia together.

Thanks for everyone's input! Elle Kpyros (talk) 22:55, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

They were anathematized for purporting something controversial. You are right that purported "likelihood" (of genetic influence on...) is the most accurate. I could live with "purported genetic" at the level of imprecision in article leads. I think, though, that this discussion like dozens of others on WP is beset by a fake definition of hereditarianism. No political camp has ever much cared about the possibility of a few points of average IQ difference between groups having a genetic cause. The argument has always been about Jensen's contention that large differences consequential for social policy and education are of genetic origin. But we are getting tooth and claw RGW/POVFIGHTER levels of resistance (and outright falsifications) to almost meaningless "some differences may exist" type of assertions and a perceived need to Wiki-anathematize even those. Pour encourager les autres. Sesquivalent (talk) 03:19, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

IQ differences vs differences in "real intelligence"

Use purport if you like (twice in one sentence is excessive and obvious), but the comments by Stonkaments and especially the first one by Hob Gadling are correct, which makes the pompous corrections rather amusing. It is only the connection to genetics that logically requires "purported". The statement that the observed large testing differences between groups necessarily implies a substantial difference in average "intelligence", however you might ultimately define that word, is mainstream, does not require treating IQ (or "g") as being equivalent to intelligence, or intelligence being one dimensional, or any of the other sorts of cavils being floated here. Well regarded experts haved stated it without qualification, in print. This is an old and no longer controversial point from the psychometric IQ debates that has nothing to do with the question of what causes the differences. Example from three of today's leading opponents of genetic theories of IQ differences, from their above mentioned rant in Vox against Charles Murray:

"Race differences in average IQ score. People who identify as black or Hispanic in the US and elsewhere on average obtain lower IQ scores than people who identify as white or Asian. That is simply a fact, and stating it plainly offers no support in itself for a biological interpretation of the difference. To what extent is the observed difference in cognitive function a reflection of the myriad ways black people in the US experience historical, social, and economic disadvantage — earning less money, suffering more from chronic disease, dying younger, living in more dangerous and chaotic neighborhoods, attending inferior schools? Or, following Murray, is IQ an essential inborn characteristic of a group’s genetic background, a biologically inherent deficit in cognitive ability that in part causes their other disadvantages?"
(Eric Turkheimer, Kathryn Paige Harden, and Richard E. Nisbett, "Charles Murray is once again peddling junk science about race and IQ" ,Vox, May 18, 2017)

Note the lack of qualifiers (purported, supposed, hypothetical, etc). Unless you know of some difference between "cognitive function" and "intelligence" this is a clear example of passing from IQ differences to statements about intelligence. I can explain some of the reasons here if needed, but the above should be enough to make the point that some of the loudest voices here have very confidently wrong notions of what is and is not fringe in this subject. Sesquivalent (talk) 11:43, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

You're making a straw-man argument, since the use of the word purported does not imply that what follows is fringe. It implies that what follows is an opinion, not a fact. In this case the opinion is so vague -- because of the absence of any agreed upon definition of connection, race, or intelligence -- that it's absurd to call it a "fact", as Stonkaments does. The belief in genetic differences in intelligence between races is fringe, but the belief in a "connection between race and intelligence" depends on how one defines the terms. If intelligence is defined as what IQ tests measure, if "connection" is defined as correlation, and if "race" is defined as what's socially perceived to be divisions between races, then the claimed "connection" follows from those definitions. NightHeron (talk) 11:56, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
Also, I've read plenty of rants in my day, and Turkheimer et al. ain't one of them. XOR'easter (talk) 17:57, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
I did not connect "purported" with fringe; you did, by stating the first is required to avoid the second.
The point that seems unacceptable to you, yet is accepted by experts in the field, is that the inference of a real intelligence difference (from the pattern of large IQ differences, larger g differences, differences on all subtests and other accepted empirical facts) does not depend on the particular definition of "race" or "intelligence" used, including hypothetical future improvements of the measure of intelligence. For "race" that is obvious, because for current US populations of "blacks" and "whites" (however defined) the different classification schemes agree with each other very close to 100 percent of the time. If your sample has 100 "black" people under definition A, it might have 101 people under definition B, 99 of them being in both sets. Small differences like that make very little change in the averages of any quantity computed for the B and W populations, be it IQ, g, a polygenic score or something else. For definitions of "intelligence" you have to know a bit more but suffice it to say that to make a difference of over 10 points (2/3 standard deviation) go away by using some IQ2.0 score that purifies the Platonic essence of intelligence, would require finding new and unheard of, unnamed (in 2500 years) concepts of intelligence that carry a giant statistical signal uncorrelated with g yet having similar or better predictive power, and showing large advantages for blacks over whites. For example, if your new index was equivalent to 50 percent conventional IQ plus 50 percent the new unheard of signal of True Intelligence, blacks would need to outscore whites by 10 points on this previously unseen metric. Which, again, is completely unknown today, unheard of in history, but extremely important as an aspect of intelligence and prediction once recognized. This is Bigfoot riding a UFO territory and nobody believes it, though people have certainly looked hard for such a thing. Sesquivalent (talk) 09:49, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
Actually, The "black-white IQ gap" [..] is literally a connection between race and intelligence was not correct, as IQ does not equal intelligence. I should probably have kept out of this, instead of falling in that simple trap. I miss MjolnirPants... --Hob Gadling (talk) 18:04, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
As stated above, IQ does not have to be the same as intelligence for the inference to be correct, because the reasoning is not "IQ differences and no other information, therefore...". It's rather, "given what else we know, the pattern of large group differences on IQ tests and subtests implies...", which is no longer a disputed inference in this subject because enough other information has accumulated to narrow the possibilities for objection down to unserious Bigfoot UFO scenarios. The distinction between intelligence and IQ has always been a SKYISBLUE standard disclaimer, and the experts I quoted mention it while also making the undisputed inference in plain English.
Your suggested phrasing involving purported genetic has the virtue of being correct and capturing the crux of the controversy about the book (the lead is supposed to summarize things, is it not?), while not rubbing the reader's face in this matter of the IQ differences robustly reflecting a real ability difference. That seems to split the baby quite Solomonically. Sesquivalent (talk) 21:00, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
IQ does not have to be the same as intelligence for the inference to be correct You are obviously unaware of the fact that the mathematical relation "is significantly correlated with" is not transitive. If "intelligence" (as defined by the people who did the math on the correlation) is correlated with IQ, and IQ is correlated with "race" (as defined by US authorities), it does not follow that "intelligence" is correlated with "race". Your deduction is incorrect, and that is one of the reasons why Wikipedia does not rely on Wikipedia users' deductions but on reliable sources.
When I wrote what you are now agreeing with, I was not thinking it through. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:08, 17 November 2021 (UTC)
Nobody is making the cartoon transitivity argument, though (as you seem not to know) it is actually correct for correlations that are high enough. The point is rather that a lot is known about psychometrics that severely limits the possibilities for alternative notions of intelligence to somehow change the pattern from the one seen for IQ and g. Sesquivalent (talk) 09:49, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
Of course I know that if correlations are high enough, their combination is transitive. It boggles the mind how someone, like your strawman version of me, would know that it is not transitive in general without knowing that it is transitive in special cases.
It sounds as if you do make the transitivity argument though, and now additionally claim that the correlations are high enough to justify transitivity. So, how high is the correlation between IQ and "intelligence" (whatever that is)? --Hob Gadling (talk) 11:56, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
The issue is really that there's no agreed upon definition of intelligence. If one has a deeply felt conviction that general intelligence (the so-called "g" factor) is what IQ tests do a good job of measuring, then of course there's a high correlation. If you don't buy that, and think that general intelligence is much broader and more complicated than what can be measured by a multiple-choice test, and if you don't believe that Mensa members are the intellectual elite of the world, then you're unconvinced of a high correlation. NightHeron (talk) 12:35, 18 November 2021 (UTC)
Not so fast. We have made important progress, common ground that I would be remiss not to record for the next 20 times it comes up.
Above, and in numerous Talk page postings, you and others have always insisted that the imprecision or lack of a unique definition of race is a big problem for drawing conclusions about groups. Here, I posted an arithmetic example of how the extremely high agreement (like 99 percent, sometimes higher, never below 95+ as far as I know) between different methods of classifying race in US black/white samples actually show that the vagueness of "race" has an effect very close to zero when comparing those two groups. Your subsequent comment still talks about the imprecision of intelligence, but has abandoned the same objection about "race".
Am I right in assuming you now understand that imprecision about the exact meaning of "race" has no bearing on studies of this subject? Classification by race could of course change, be outlawed as in France, or become more ambiguous due to intermarriage. But you agree that in past, present, and near future studies, findings about US black/white "races" in one sense are transferable to race in a different (but statistically extremely concordant) sense? i.e, that this is a non issue for all practical purposes? If you have any remaining disagreement, please explain why. Otherwise we can put this longstanding Wikipedia issue (both talk pages and in articles) to bed. Sesquivalent (talk) 21:34, 19 November 2021 (UTC)
No, I'm afraid you're missing the point. As discussed elsewhere, the scientific consensus is that race is a social construct that is not based on biology. People in some country or region might largely agree with one another about what the term "Black people" means, but in another part of the world the perception would be different. The term has very different meanings in the US, the UK, South Africa, etc. Tallies of racial classification (e.g., in the US census) generally use self-identification to determine racial category. Other than a few superficial characteristics (including correlation with susceptibility to a few diseases, although that's really a correlation with geographical ancestry more than with perceived race), these groups are indistinguishable genetically. In any case, this has already been discussed at length, so let's not get into a debate about this here. NightHeron (talk) 11:09, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
  1. ^ Cofnas, Nathan (1 February 2015). "Science Is Not Always "Self-Correcting"". Foundations of Science. doi:10.1007/s10699-015-9421-3.
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