Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sex and intelligence

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Keep and no consensus to move. Jersey Devil 13:56, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sex and intelligence[edit]

Sex_and_intelligence (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - (View log)

Does this topic really deserve an article of its own? I think it should either be deleted or merged with another article about sexism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by James Hetfield (talk • contribs)

Next time, just put your signature after your deletion argument. There's no need to say this twice. FrozenPurpleCube 15:43, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as long as we have Race and intelligence we ought to have this too. The article needs to be expanded to inculde more information on sexism. futurebird 21:47, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletions. -- Pete.Hurd 15:04, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of sexuality and gender-related deletions. -- Pete.Hurd 15:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep a resonable topic, encyclopedic and meeting article attribution requirements while not meeting the deletion criteria in any way. NeoFreak 16:42, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Definitely controversial subject, deletion reeks of censorship. There are plenty of sources that could be included. There are other ways of dealing with controversial subjects on Wikipedia than deleting them. This is one subject that has had a great impact on society apart from sexism.--Parsleyjones 17:51, 9 March 2007
    • "Deletion" does not "reek of censorship" since nobody is proposing we delete the articles of all the researchers and their work. Usedup 00:56, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Except, by removing the single article, it could be interpreting as favoring one researcher or another. That would violate WP:NPOV. FrozenPurpleCube 16:15, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Censorship doesn't mean removing something completely; women's breasts are censored on TV, but there are still billions of them out there. To simply declare that the subject is a subheading of sexism is to declare a POV, and to prevent the subject from being addressed fairly. Is Wikipedia going to officially state that sex has no bearing on intelligence, and throw all research that might not support that under the heading of sexism?--Parsleyjones 23:40, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom. Individuals like us can never write a good non-bias article on something like this. Get rid of Race and Intelligence while you're at it. Anyone wanting to look up that information has way more reliable collections of information to read than a poorly-written and potentially bias-ridden wikipedia article. Usedup 18:55, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment If we all took that attitude, there wouldn't be a wikipedia. The entire thing is created by "individuals like us". exolon 21:38, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • I agree, although it still needs to be shown that the wikipedia can make this kind of content work. It's up to us to do that work. futurebird 22:41, 9 March 2007 (UTC)][reply]
        • An article like this needs expert attention, which most wikipedians don't have. There is no point of quibbing over this article when most of its points can be well covered in the biographies of researchers on the matter, like Richard Lynn etc. Usedup 00:56, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • I'm afraid I must disagree, since there is a wide gulf between what a researcher produces and the subject itself. Especially when there's more than one researcher. Besides, content disputes are not grounds for deletion. FrozenPurpleCube 04:24, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • But there shouldn't be a big gulf between what a researcher says and what we report. Hence, it is perfectly fine. "content disputes are not grounds for deletion" No idea what that was suppose to mean or prove. Usedup 05:43, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree, if a notable researcher says something, it would behoove Wikipedia to include that information. I don't see this as a real problem with Wikipedia, given that many times information is added within moments of being reported. Some people actually have trouble with that, thinking it's too quick. However, I don't think you understood my comment. Wikipedia is not a collection of sources of research, like say Nexis-Lexis, but rather a compilation of information. As such, the subject of an article is independent of the researchers. This is true for every subject, whether it be Sex and intelligence or astrophysics. People don't look for the researcher, they look for the subject. What you're talking about would be a different thing than an encyclopedia, or at least, fundamentally change the nature of Wikipedia. So, that's something too large to discuss here. But anyway, content disputes are not grounds for deletion means exactly what it means. If there is a dispute as to the actual content of a page (as compared to disagreement over whether the subject of a page is encyclopedic or not), then the proper form to resolve those disputes is not through the deletion of an article. Perhaps you need to review the deletion policyand the guide to deletion so you can understand the difference better. You might also wish to review the AFD of the Daniel Brandt article, to see some responses as to why the mere trouble of editing an article is not convincing as grounds to delete. FrozenPurpleCube 15:40, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hope I've helped you understand why your argument here is not persuasive. FrozenPurpleCube 15:40, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • There is no potential bias or original research interpretation of sources available in astrophysics as there is in sex and intelligence. Usedup 18:01, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Potential for bias is not a reason to delete, otherwise we'd have no articles on anything related to sex, sexuality, politics, religion, Israel-Palestine, Iraq, the United States, Iran, North Korea, Turkey, the EU, ... I disagree that the article needs expert attention--one can simply read the results of studies and report them here. -- Black Falcon 18:11, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • Isn't there someone famous here who runs on the premise "no article is better than a bad article"? I'm actually well-read on Sex and Intelligence and Race and Intelligence and I know very well that although both articles do report plenty of facts, many of these facts are being misrepresented and morphed (on both sides). I don't consider myself an expert but I do think we need an expert to fix these articles up if we're gonna keep them. No one wishes to step forward so I see delete as the only option. Usedup 20:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • The potential for bias only makes it a concern to edit the article properly, not a reason for deletion. Plus I know some people who might say there is quite a lot of potential for bias in astrophysics. FrozenPurpleCube 16:55, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Article has nothing do with sexism. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 23:54, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to Gender and intelligence as that name is less confusing than the current one. Otherwise keep. The subject itself is quite distinct from sexism and it's completely possible for us to write this article. Note that being difficult to write is not a grounds for deletion. FrozenPurpleCube 03:01, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and possibly move to Gender and ... , which is closer to the intended meaning. DGG 03:18, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Agree, move to Gender and intelligence. futurebird 18:05, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. Are gender and sex the same thing? They say gender is a social construct, and it seems to me the question of sex and intelligence is asking a biological question.--Parsleyjones 23:42, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong, strong Keep. An encyclopedic topic that has been the subject of (semi-)scientific inquiry for well over a century. Though much of the initial (i.e., 19th century) research was based in sexism, it is inappropriate to label more recent research on the subject as such. Also, do not move to gender and intelligence. Gender is a semi-flexible social construction, sex is a biological characteristic; research on this subject has (almost) always been about the latter. -- Black Falcon 18:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • This discussion has been added as a test case to the proposed guideline Wikipedia:Notability (science). ~ trialsanderrors 00:43, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per reasons above. --Mad Max 11:28, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and Rename to Gender and intelligence. -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 23:07, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and Do Not Rename. The nomination asks if this material would be better merged, and yet this is a deletion discussion not a merge discussion. The size of the sourced content is large enough to force any article it would merge into into "verylong" status. So I cannot agree with the nominator's reasons for deletion. Usedup suggests that an article like this can't be written without bias, but the article lacks a current bias tag, and appears to contain a fairly reasonable dose of sourced information. Moreover, as someone who has done work on equally charged issues elsewhere in Wikipedia (the current debate over the Pope's past in the Hitler Youth comes to mind), I don't find that argument plausible either. As these two arguments for deletion are trivially rebutted, and I see no other reason to suggest deletion, I'm forced to "keep." As far as the rename--"gender" and "sex" are different things, the research listed deals with sex, not gender, so the rename would be inappropriate, thus "do not rename". --Joe Decker 02:56, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, I don't understand how gender and sex are such different things, could you explain why? And can you offer some suggestions to fix the ambiguity in the title? I understand this article was moved from Gender and intelligence, but I don't see that the new title is an improvement. After all, sex is also the act of intercourse, and I could imagine some coverage of that subject. FrozenPurpleCube 03:11, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sure, glad to! A good description can be found here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Sociology/Gender. Now, word definitions are more complex than that article describes, if you look at Merriam-Webster it will tell you that "sex" can both mean intercourse and male/female, and that gender can mean what I'm saying or "sex". But when the two terms are used near each other in a compare/contrast way, the breakdown is typically the way that Intro. to Sociology text describes. (And I don't have a third alternative that's less ambiguous, if I did I'd be very open to using it.) Given that both words are ambiguous, I kinda go with "sex", not because it's titillating, but because (a) I think it's what's used in the literature, and because (b) it's unlikely that someone reading the full article will think that the subject refers to relationships of intercourse and sexuality, but might well be confused as to whether the article discusses relationships of sexuality and physical characteristics, or relationships of sexuality and social constructs. Anyway, hope I didn't overexplain this. --Joe Decker 03:48, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • No, I don't think your explanation is overly much, I just don't feel convinced by it. I'm aware of this technical distinction, I looked at the subject when somebody first objected to the alternate name I proposed. It didn't convince me, as while that may be the usage in that field, the problem with the ambiguity itself comes from an entirely different source, and that problem doesn't exist in the common vernacular with say Gender and intelligence. Ah well, I think it's a problem, but it's not one that's causing problems right now or violates NPOV. It's just a question of clarity. FrozenPurpleCube 05:34, 12 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Don't move it to sexism because sexism has a negative connotation, and this topic need not be negative or positive, but objectective as a scientific article representing facts and not opinions. Sexism is very arbitrary and subjective as a topic, and if we were to combine intelligence with sexism we would be changing the tone of the article from scientific to non-scientific. The non-scientific should stay in sexism. The idea of changing the name to Gender and Intelligence is not good because, as someone else already mentioned, Gender is a social construct in which a person of male sex could have "female" gender. This is not good because once again it would change the tone of the article to nonscientific. 71.207.94.117 22:34, 12 March 2007 (UTC) Scifiintel 22:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC) I wrote this but forgot to sign in.[reply]
  • Keep Definitely a topic worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. Discussions on merge, rename, etc. can be held in the proper fashion after this AfD is complete. ZueJay (talk) 00:26, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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