User talk:Captain Occam

Welcome!

Hello, Captain Occam, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your messages on discussion pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{helpme}} before the question. Again, welcome! Protonk (talk) 05:13, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

A suggestion from an outside editor

Hey. You seem to be hitting your head against a wall on this Watson issue. Have you considered editing another corner of the encyclopedia where you might not come into conflict? Your edits on James D. Watson are approaching the three revert rule and we generally like to keep pages to one reversion without discussion. I'm not saying that you are wrong or right or that the material is wrong or right. Just that you might be happier helping out in some other areas for a little while. The importance of an error can seem to be magnified if you concentrate too much on one issue. Wikipedia is a big place. I hope you enjoy contributing here wherever you choose to contribute. Protonk (talk) 05:19, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, but this particular topic has always mattered to me a lot--even before I decided that I thought the Wikipedia article on James Watson could be improved. I still have a lot of respect for Watson, and the way certain things about his controversial comments were misreported has bothered me ever since this news item was current. I've had an account on Wikipedia for over a year; this particular thing just happens to be one of the only times that something here has caught my attention enough to be motivated to change it.

Captain Occam (talk) 05:41, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok. There is nothing wrong with that and I understand your frustration with the apology being misreported. Did you find anything that works in the news archive search I linked at the reliable sources noticeboard? I didn't look through it before I posted it. Protonk (talk) 05:45, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately no, although it's also possible that I missed something there. And I appreciate whatever other assistance you and other editors can offer about this. Captain Occam (talk) 06:11, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

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Race and crime

What material from this article before it was redirected do you think should be included in the redirect? Please discuss here or on the article talk page. Before going to noticeboards you should attempt to solve the issue on the article talk page (in this case Talk:Anthropological criminology), and be aware of WP:FORUMSHOP. Thanks, Verbal chat 22:26, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

The most important information that I think needs to be included is the crime statistics here. I see that you were one of the people who wanted this information deleted from the article, even though there was no consensus for doing so. I guess the first thing we need to discuss is why you wanted this information deleted wholesale from Wikipedia when it's properly sourced, and it describes a societal issue that receives a fair amount of political attention, so it's clearly notable. If you're concerned that this section of the article was making original research claims which aren't supported by the sources, that can be corrected without having to delete it entirely. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:53, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Those statistics were being misused to push a racist POV by some users (some material came from a recognised racist "hate group"). If you want to include the statistics, please propose a neutral way of including them per WP:NPOV. That material kept being removed, replaced, updated to remove some POV, then replaced again, before being removed again. We should avoid raw primary statistics and rely on analysis of the data, preferably. Honestly, this is best addressed taking it to the article talk - but you'll need to convince us why it should be included. Other useful policies regarding this data and inclusion are WP:COATRACK, WP:NOT, WP:RS, WP:OR, WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE. Thanks, Verbal chat 07:10, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

I just wanted to drop you a note thanking you for keeping this article alive. It still needs lots of work, but I think it's finally on the road to recovery. :) —Aryaman (talk) 01:21, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I'll be busy during the week, so I won't have much time to keep up the pace. But I think, with the work that has gone into it over the last few days, it should hold up. It can still be expanded, particularly in the criticism and analysis sections, but I'm starting to get into cross-references in the literature, which is a good sign. What the article really needs right now is for a skilled editor to go through the whole thing from top to bottom and tighten everything up. If you're feeling up to it, be my guest. :) —Aryaman (talk) 01:33, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do, but I'm fairly busy also. The thing I really wanted to accomplish with this article was to rescue it from the wiki-limbo where it had been since March, and get it to the point where improving it would be a (relatively) straightforward process. I think I’ve succeeded with that goal, so I no longer feel the need to be quite as involved as I was previously.

Thanks for all your help with this article, by the way. If you’re looking for someone else (other than me) to help with it, I recommend contacting User:Dbachmann, since he’s done a lot of work on it and was the one who originally re-created it. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:32, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

July 2009

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Anthropological criminology. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform a large number of reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring, even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing. Please do not repeatedly revert edits, but use the talk page to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. If necessary, pursue dispute resolution. Verbal chat 10:19, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I have been trying to discuss it with you on the Anthroplogical criminology discussion page, but you appear uninterested in discussing it with me there. Please follow your own advice about this, and engage in the discussion I am trying to have with you, rather than simply reverting my edits without discussion. --Captain Occam (talk) 10:26, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Race and crime in the United States

Hi, Captain Occam. I recently made significant changes to the article Race and crime in the United States to reflect both the concerns regarding neutrality and synthesis as well as the results of some informal research I conducted regarding what could be seen as a fair and even-handed presentation. I would be grateful if you could review the article anew and comment on the talk page. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 15:23, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi again. I wanted to ask you a question about the Rushton info. I would ask on the talkpage, but that thing is getting on in length and needs to be archived soon, and the question is short: Does Rushton make an explicit connection between aggressiveness, race and crime rates in his book? The way the statement reads now, it looks as though editors are assuming the connection for Rushton instead of presenting it as he makes it. I'd change it, but I don't have the book and you seem to have it at hand. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 11:23, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I’m pretty certain that he does. I actually don’t have the original version of his book either, but I have an abridged PDF version of it (also written by Rushton), and he explicitly makes the connection there. Wikipedia’s summary of the original version of his book, in the article about it, states the connection as well.

Rushton’s r/K theory is also talked about in the Google Books copy of Gabbidon and Greene’s Race and Crime, in which they summarize this theory, also explicitly stating the connection. You can cite their book rather than Rushton’s for this if you like, but I generally have a preference for citing theories to their original creators. --Captain Occam (talk) 11:42, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm making a trip to the library in a few hours to check out a copy of Gabbidon and Greene's Race and Crime, so I could pick up Rushton's book myself, if that would be easiest. Also, I'll stop by the references section to make some photocopies of the Encyclopedia. I'm mainly focusing on the theory-related articles, but if you have something in particular you'd like to have me look up, let me know. ;) Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 13:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi again. :) Seeing as Fowler&Fowler appears ready to push for the race and crime article to get deleted - or at least find editors who are willing to do so - I moved over text from my sandbox to the main article to get a version in there I feel capable of defending before all hell breaks loose. I know some stuff got "lost" in the move, but I'm still working on it.

Yet, the longer I work with it, the stronger my impression becomes that Wikipedia simply can't handle this article - or any reasonably intelligent article on any truly controversial topic. Too many people don't "like" it, and they will scour the policy pages looking for anything which they can construe as a violation. It's a shame, really. But that's Wikipedia. :) Thanks, —Aryaman (talk) 12:22, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Whether or not Wikipedia can handle it depends on how many people there are who are willing to defend it, and how devoted they are. In my opinion, you've done an excellent job with this so far.

I'm rather busy with the Race and intelligence article at the moment, but if there's anything specific that you want me to help you with related to Race and crime, I'm willing. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:43, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm in the end-stages of my work on this article, and though there is room for improvement (as always), I think it's definitely C/B quality. If/when it comes under heavy attack (as I'm sure it will the day it gets added to the Race infobox), I might need to spend more time defending and/or improving it. Thus, I think I'll be able to give race and intelligence more attention in the days to come. I personally feel that the race and crime article does a fair job of dealing with the controversy, and I think some of the things I learned there could be of use on race and intelligence. Thus, I'd appreciate if you could look over race and crime and give me some constructive feedback on it regarding its treatment. If you agree, then maybe we can develop a strategy for improving race and intelligence accordingly. Regards, --Aryaman (talk) 00:57, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

All right, thanks. I actually did have one criticism about the race and crime article that I wanted to mention, and I've just posted about it on the article's talk page. Hopefully we'll be able to come up with a way to improve this aspect of the article. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:22, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Race and intelligence

Hi Captain Occam. I briefly viewed both the article and the discussion on Race and intelligence as you requested. As my work on the race and crime article has continued, I've noticed that it intersects so heavily with other race-related issues that I will probably get at least partially involved in some of those articles as well at some point. But right now I am happy to focus on race and crime. I'm finally to the point where I think I can make substantial and lasting progress which should get us past the neutrality issue for good. The next problem on the horizon, however, will come from the separatist camp with their desire to break the article down into spin-off articles. And that's fine, as there really is enough literature to justify the existence of articles on, for example, criminological theories of race and crime. So hopefully you'll understand when I say I'd like to get this article stable and past the template-issues before moving on to tackle other problematic articles. And by the way, you are welcome to view my sandbox, which contains my latest work on the race and crime article. I just worked out an outline (thought some points will change; for example, it seems experts can't agree as to whether r/K theory and I.Q. theory are to be considered biological theories or biosocial theories, with the liberal camp arguing for the former, and the conservative camp arguing for the latter - it seems minor but it's actually quite important both in terms of taxonomy as well as article structure) and I'll be fleshing it out over the next few days. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 05:05, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I just wanted to offer a friendly suggestion that you be cautious with edits in the Race and Intelligence article to avoid the possibility of a perception of an edit war, or other escalation in that regard (not that your edits have been inappropriate at all). With the number of editors intent on changing the article, and the likelihood they will just try to cram through changes, it seems like an "edit war" is a real possibility. Fixentries (talk) 18:52, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

This sort of thing has been a problem for this article in the past, and I wish there were a way to avoid it. As one of the only editors who's trying to prevent them from going all out with their proposed revisions, I'm having a lot more demand placed on me than I'm comfortable with. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:58, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I hope that my removal of the tags didn't stir up the bee's nest again. I didn't really have a good appreciation of wikipedia rules and politics, just figured the tags were distracting and too many in number. Fixentries (talk) 19:01, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi again. I'm not very knowledgeable about the specifics of IQ research, but while I was rummaging around for info on the race and crime issue, I came across the notion of "polygenic inheritance" and IQ. Is there a reason this is not being discussed in the race and intelligence article? As it seems to me, the folks who are contesting the genetic hypothesis continually repeat "there is no intelligence gene" - which appears to be a straw man argument if there is any credence to the notion of polygenics. Either way, it seems like it's a perspective which should perhaps be mentioned. E.g.:

"Much of our development and, interestingly, most of our behavior, personality, and even intelligence quotient (IQ) is probably polygenic - that is, influenced by many genes, each contributing only a tiny effect. For this reason, most scientists have decided that we must look for patterns of influence across these genes, using procedures called quantitative genetics (Plomin, 1990; Plomin, DeFries, McClearn, & Rutter, 1997)."

That's from a run-of-the-mill college textbook on abnormal psychology (Durand, Vincent M.; Barlow, David H. (2006). Essentials of Abnormal Psychology. pg. 38). I'm sure lots more could be found on this, as it appears to be the standard approach to things in abnormal psychology. Like I said, I'm a total layman, but this makes the genetic hypothesis seem a whole lot more understandable. I don't know if that means anything at all over at the article, but when I read that, I thought of you. :) --Aryaman (talk) 16:51, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

You can try adding that to the article if you like, but I'm pretty burned out about this at this point. I tried yesterday to add a pair of studies about genetic influence on IQ, and they were removed without explanation; when I told the editor who'd removed them that his deletion of properly-sourced material seemed to be POV-pushing, he didn't respond. He later claimed that this viewpoint shouldn't be in the article because the only sources that support it are newspapers and blogs, even though he himself had just removed a pair of peer-reviewed studies supporting it.

I explained this issue some more in response to EdJohnston below. I'm not sure what can be done about it, but you're welcome to get involved. It might be helpful for the article to have more editors who actually care about improving it, rather than just about removing the points of view they don't like. --Captain Occam (talk) 17:21, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the recent note. :) I'm glad to help out if I can. However, I don't know how helpful I can be with this article. I'd really like to help, and after considering the article for some time, I think I see ways to improve it significantly. But given the current situation, I seriously doubt any truly helpful changes can be made. Right now, the article is jumbled mess, to be frank. Everything in it has been henpecked to death so that the reader comes away knowing less than he thought he did before reading it. If there were more flexibility, I would propose a radical outline change coupled with a stringent separation of actual results from the accompanying commentary similar to what I've done on race and crime. The article is about race and intelligence, i.e. the supposed connection between those two things, yet the article has a hard time saying anything unambiguous about either of them, and every phrase has been couched in doubt to the point of nausea. If I make any constructive suggestions, I think it will just frustrate the other editors. Nonetheless, I'll see what I can do. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 05:04, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

By the way: I currently have a copy of Rushton's Race, Evolution, and Bahavior. I checked it out for the race and crime article (and it has come in handy), but I'm pretty much done with it and plan on taking it back to the library soon. If you'd like me to look up something specific while I have it, don't hesitate to ask. :) --Aryaman (talk) 22:40, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Let me run something by you:

Following Slrubenstein's last post, the meaning of heritability is "very straightforward". OK. Then there should be no ambiguity in the statement: "The consensus among intelligence researchers is that IQ differences between individuals of the same racial-ethnic group reflect real, functionally and socially significant, and substantially heritable differences in intelligence", right? Am I missing something vital here? This whole discussion has been to entertain doubts regarding its supposed ambiguity, when the term said to cause this ambiguity is "heritable". If "heritable" is unambiguous, then why are we discussing this any further? The meaning should be self-evident, i.e. same-group IQ differences are heritable, i.e. not environmentally influenced. That's the entire principle upon which Lewontin's corn example works, and, unless I'm am totally off my rocker, if we alter the degree of heritability for groups (for example, by limiting it to the "white group") then we eliminate the basis upon which the environmental argument is founded, i.e. that it is the environment and not measurable differences in genotype which account for differences in the overall mean. I must be misunderstanding something important, because not only do I fail to see the ambiguity of the statement - especially if they are not referring to the Jensen/Lewontin difference of opinion regarding whether the difference in mean can be used to say say anything meaningful (Flynn helped me grasp this, as well as the reason why Lewontin's argument pretty much misses the mark) - but I also fail to see what they hope to gain by limiting the statement to "some groups". Does this not damage the environmental theory substantially (and unfairly)? Help me out here, lol. --Aryaman (talk) 13:57, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

PS: (Forgive me for dragging on, but I need to clarify this for myself, I guess:) In other words, is there a consensus among credible scholars that there is a significant difference in heritability between blacks and whites? Because it seems to me that this is the central point in Jensen's arguments, i.e. that, if heritability is high (say .70-.80) in both blacks and whites (which is what he seems to be claiming, as well as what the equality thesis would demand that we assume), then heritability can be used to make comparisons between groups, i.e. that even if we assume the worst-case scenario for American Blacks in terms of environment, their actual mean still tells us what they would be capable of achieving if we could eliminate all negative environmental factors. This is how I understand Jensen, and this is how I think Flynn understands Jensen. (Which is why Flynn puts so much emphasis on expat-children, as I understand him.) If I've missed something, please take a minute and explain it to me. Now, if one were to try to get around Jensen's argument, one could try claiming that there is a substantial difference in heritability between blacks and whites, with the implication that the best black scores only indicate, say .40, of what blacks could achieve in a "perfect" environment. But, and this is the thing that's really bugging me: How can we argue that there is a substantial difference in heritability without undermining the fundamental assumption of the environmental thesis itself? Does not such a conclusion led us to assume that - in the framework of Lewontin's corn example - that we do not have two comparable sets of seeds, but that we indeed have two different varieties of corn? Is my confusion coming across adequately? :) --Aryaman (talk) 15:10, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

OK. I think I have a better handle on things now. I'm trying to see the ups and downs to all the arguments (which is, in my opinion, necessary if one is going to edit an article on an inherently contentious topic - I just wish this view was shared by more editors), and I think I see where I was being mislead regarding Lewontin's views. Anyways, sorry to flood your talkpage like this. :-/ --Aryaman (talk) 00:16, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I had just typed out a detailed response to your earlier question when I saw your newest comment, but I guess I’ll post it anyway:

First of all, I should probably mention that in my opinion, the hereditarian view about this is a more parsimonious and empirically testable hypothesis than the environmental hypothesis. I hesitate to use the word “better”, because everyone has a different definition of what’s “good”, even when it comes to scientific theories. But from the point of view of Popper’s philosophy of science, an ideal scientific hypothesis must have certain characteristics in order to operate within the scientific method, and those include parsimony and falsifiability.

The real strength of the environmental hypothesis—or the real weakness, depending on how you look at it—is its flexibility. The hereditarian hypothesis is based on a specific set of assumptions, which also make certain specific predictions, such as that no environmental effect will cause the IQ difference to disappear when it’s adjusted for. On the other hand, Flynn’s perspective is that the IQ difference is being caused by an environmental factor that nobody has identified. Since this environmental factor is unnamed, there are no tests one could perform to determine whether and to what extent it affects IQ. Its existence is also unfalsifiable, because nobody can ever prove that all environmental factors which influence IQ have been identified.

Anyway, about Lewontin’s corn example: I think the idea with this example is that environmental factors are depressing the growth of the second group of corn completely uniformly. Since every member of that group is having its growth retarded by lack of nutrients to the exact same degree, the variation within that group is still heavily influenced by heredity. I agree with you that in order for this to be a good analogy for IQ, the within-group heritability of IQ needs to be high for both blacks and whites. But what you need to keep in mind about this is what I mentioned about the flexibility of the environmental model. Since there is no single set of assumptions that this model is based on, its proponents tend to point out any apparent weaknesses they can find in Jensen’s theory about this, regardless of whether or not these apparent weaknesses are consistent with the arguments being used by other opponents of the hereditarian view.

I hope that’s clarified things. You’re asking me a lot of questions here, so I’m not sure if I’ve answered them all, but you can let me know if there’s anything else specific that you’d like me to explain. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:30, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it confirms the conclusions I was able to draw, so I'm appreciative of your comments. And again, sorry for the flooding. I just wanted to make sure I'm getting a balanced perspective on this. Getting a balanced view into the article, however, looks like a serious uphill battle. Have you noticed User talk:T34CH? Am I reading something wrong or are they actually assuming that one of us - either me, you or perhaps Fixentries? David Kane? - is a sockpuppet? This is one paranoid group of editors. Already today I was accused of pushing a "racialist agenda" (?). As long as it remains humorous, I'll hang around and see what can be done to improve the article. But I really do have better things to do than to argue with people who refuse to accept that they, like everyone else, have a bias. :-) --Aryaman (talk) 01:34, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Since I don’t know what the process is for evaluating whether a particular user is a sockpuppet, I don’t know whether this would help anything, but I have a fairly strong online presence that’s pretty obviously all associated with a single person. As is pointed out on my userpage, the name “Captain Occam” is a reference to a specific cartoon character I’ve created, and anyone who looks at either my online art gallery or my webcomics site can see the comics I’ve created involving him. My online art gallery also contains the same chart that I created for the Race and genetics article, which is another way to confirm that this art gallery actually belongs to me. My online art gallery also contains a few photographs of me, such as this one.

If you have your own collection of online accounts with a similar amount of personal information about yourself, it seems like that ought to be a fairly easy way to determine that one of us isn’t a sockpuppet of the other, or that we aren’t both sockpuppets of someone else. --Captain Occam (talk) 01:52, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not giving up on the article, but I doubt whether the current "discussions" are going to lead anywhere fruitful. While we're trying to discuss this, the other editors are just going ahead with their changes. If we start editing or reverting, an edit war will break out, and with their clout on the notice boards, there is very little chance that we'll be able to come out of that with anything less than a topic ban. I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better to just let them go through with their changes. It's clear that they want to slant the article in the same direction, so if given free range, eventually they will come to a point where they are satisfied. What I suggest we do in the meantime is work on a fair and balanced article on a userpage. When the article is ready, then we can try to drum up attention from a wide spectrum of uninvolved editors to get a fair and balanced article up in the mainspace. I don't really like withdrawing from the main article, but I don't see what other option they leave us.

The only reason I was able to make such drastic changes to the race and crime article is because the people involved there were honest enough to acknowledge that I was making substantial, well-sourced and constructive contributions. That article had a hideous past, with several AfD proposals against it, but it now stands in a relatively stable state, the numerous templates have been removed, and the justified concerns voiced on the talkpage have all but evaporated. On an interesting note, I'm now being accused of displaying an "anti-white" bias in that article. Considering the claims of "anti-black" bias I'm also facing, this tells me I must be doing something right, lol.

Unfortunately, this article is hounded by a group of editors entirely uninterested whether or not the thing contradicts itself. Their only interest is in ensuring that the hereditarian view is presented as "racialist fringe" material. That they care next to nothing about behavioral genetics or IQ studies has been shown by the fact that they can author patently false and highly misleading statements without batting an eye, and get flustered if you try to point it out to them. "The end justifies the means", and if misrepresenting science in the aims of assuaging public opinion is required, they will not hesitate to do so.

Sorry to rant; I guess I'm venting frustration. Anyway, what do you think about working on something in a userspace? --Aryaman (talk) 19:27, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Update: We might be able to hold off on that. Apparently editors are starting to realize that a good deal of the article is violating WP:MNA. If the current discussion moves along positively, we could see some consensus form as to how to move this article back into a more balanced state. Have a good night. ;) --Aryaman (talk) 02:16, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi Occam. :) I decided I would remain involved, as it's simply a pity to do otherwise. However, I think a different strategy is called for. I think the article needs to move away from polarizing the views as it does currently. My continued reading has shown me that, after you sift through all the outraged commentators and get down to the real figures involved, the experts look at this thing as a spectrum, and are merely debating as to the relative importance of various factors. I think that's what we should be doing as well. Doing away with the "environmentalist" vs. "heriditarian" polarity would also allow us to examine each of the proposed factors in more depth and with more clarity. As only a tiny and indeed "fringe" minority would actually claim 100% environment - and I am aware of no one who would claim 100% heritability - dividing this thing more than necessary appears highly counterproductive and perhaps even misleading. What are your thoughts? --Aryaman (talk) 06:23, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Your idea is definitely worth considering, although something worth keeping in mind is that researchers in this area seem more or less divided into two groups as far as viewpoint is concerned. There are those who believe that genetics are causing more than 50% of the IQ difference, and those who believe that genetics are causing less than 20% of it, with very few (as far as I know) who hold the opinion that it causes a percentage of it somewhere between those two. Even though this may be a false dichotomy, it’s a false dichotomy that seems to be represented in the source material, so it might be necessary for the article to represent it also.

Are you preferring that we not follow my suggestion about reverting the article to the state it had in December of 2006, or do you think there’s a way to combine that idea with your own? Some of the material from the earlier version of the article, such as the “significance of group IQ differences” section, seem like it might be worth including even if we follow your suggestion.

Thanks for deciding to remain involved, by the way. And I hope you enjoyed your camping trip. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:23, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

While Jensen does hypothesize an 80/20 split, he and Rushton acknowledge that the "hereditarian" view is actually 50/50. T34CH (talk) 15:16, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I think reverting to the 2006 version is still a good idea, and if you make the proposal, I'd support it.

Right now, I'm trying to get a handle on these low heritability estimates. I always seem to find the literature which gives estimates in the .70-.80 range - I even ran across one of the two large sample black-only MZ twin studies today, which gave a h² of .77. I've honestly been looking for a good explanation of the lower figures, but all of them seem to be derived either from children studies, from studies which correct heavily for SES, or some combination of those two. Do you have anything on low estimates? --Aryaman (talk) 08:15, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

If you’re asking about heritability within ethnic groups, I don’t know much about specific studies, but I think I know what the circumstances tend to be that cause low heritability. It seems to be most common in areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa, where a significant portion of the population suffers from malnutrition. Since malnutrition can depress IQ, in countries where this is common a much larger portion of the variation in IQ is due to environmental factors.

In addition to you and me, there appear to be three other editors who support the idea of reverting to the 2006 version of this article: Aprock, DistributiveJustice, and David.Kane. Fixentries might approve of it also, although he hasn’t been clear about this. If all five (or six) of us express this opinion on the article talk page, there’s a good chance that this would be enough to be considered a consensus.

If there’s a consensus for this change, I think Ramdrake and Alun would probably allow us to make it. The real problem is likely to be with T34CH, since he’s demonstrated a fair amount of disregard for consensus thus far. I’ve thought for a while that it would be worthwhile to open a sockpuppet investigation about him, but I wanted to wait until you were back from your trip before attempting this, since you seem to have a better understanding of the evidence for him being a sock than I do. Would you like to open an investigation about this yourself, or would you rather explain the evidence for it to me so I can do it? --Captain Occam (talk) 09:02, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

While I was able to determine with relative certainty that T34CH is not a new user, I found nothing which would prove conclusively that T34CH is a sockpuppet. I'm afraid that making such an accusation officially would do nothing but cause trouble. A CU search would almost certainly pull up a unique IP, and with nothing more than posting times, posting patterns, crossposts and quirks of grammar to go on, whoever accused T34CH would do more damage to himself than to T34CH. :/ --Aryaman (talk) 15:14, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I posted my comments regarding your proposal over on the talk page. I think reverting to that older version really is the best option - as long as we're simply talking about the quality of the article. I realize that suggesting such a thing is less than productive given the current climate over there, and that you were making a noble gesture in the spirit of compromise, but I wanted to get my full opinion out there. I suspect there will be considerable off-wiki canvassing to get a rejection of any such proposal, however. Editors such as us simply do not have the "connections" that are needed to push changes like this through, regardless of whether it will benefit the article or not. Let's see what happens. --Aryaman (talk) 03:49, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

3RR

Your recent editing history at Race and Intelligence shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war; that means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be, when you have seen that other editors disagree. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war; read about how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Being involved in an edit war can result in you being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you do not violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly. I think you are pretty close, I suggest taking it easy otherwise there may be administrative intervention. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:06, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I see that you have made *ten* edits to Race and intelligence in a 24-hour period. An editor has complained at the 3RR noticeboard that you have violated WP:3RR. If you disagree, can you explain which of your October 11 edits are not reverts? Four reverts would be enough to violate the 3RR policy. If you will promise to stop edit-warring on this article, you may be able to avoid a block. EdJohnston (talk) 20:22, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't have a completely accurate understanding of what constitutes a violation of this policy, so I may have violated it without realizing it, but I’ll explain the way that I understand this as well as I can.

I only consider three of them to be reverts in the sense that I think it's prohibited to have more than three of in 24 hours: this one, this one, and this one. This one was to correct drive-by-tagging which was accompanied by no explanation on the talk page; I figured that would be allowed, but perhaps it wasn’t.

I would appreciate you looking into this issue in greater depth, because the problem here involves a lot more than just me, even though I may have contributed to it. It seems to be a fairly clear example of WP:TAG_TEAM, as I pointed out on the reliable sources noticeboard.

As can be seen from the last third or so of the Race and Intelligence talk page, a few other editors of this article seem determined to remove a certain New York Times citation from the article, which I added several months ago but which hadn’t received much attention until the past few days. However, their desire to remove it doesn’t seem to be based on any specific Wikipedia policy, because each time that they’ve tried to remove it they cited a different policy that they were claiming it violated. Each time that they’ve done this, I’ve carefully explained why it’s not in violation of that policy, and they’ve abandoned their argument for removing it based on that policy. But when I do this, within a few hours they try to remove it again based on an entirely different policy, and I have to do the exact same thing again. We’re now at the point where they’re beginning recycle their earlier arguments for its removal, which they had previously abandoned after the first time I refuted them.

The point here doesn’t seem to be to provide any actual justification for this removal based on Wikipedia’s policies, but just to keep coming up with excuses for continuing to remove this citation. There are several of them who want to remove it and only one of me, so they can keep removing this reference without violating 3RR. On the other hand, each time they do this I can’t easily put it back without edit warring, which I may be gulty of in this case. I’ve been thinking of requesting the involvement of another editor in this issue, but this has already been tried once on the reliable sources noticeboard, and it wasn’t helpful. The only effect this had was for them to begin their endless cycle of arguments there, and eventually the editors who had originally responded to their request no longer had the time or energy to keep up with it, even though they had initially agreed with me about the citation being admissible.

This whole situation is a problem, and I think Ramdrake in particular has most likely violated the 3RR by this point also. If you think I’m contributing to this problem, it’s all right if you block me from editing the article for 24 hours, but please, please do something about the rest of the situation also. If you can find a way to stop the tag-teaming on this article, I promise to not edit war about it anymore either. --Captain Occam (talk) 21:34, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

A few points, TAGTEAM is an essay that enjoys no consensus, and the removal of tags is a revert. The list of exceptions is given in WP:3RR, and doesn't include removing tags. Cheers, Verbal chat 22:02, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Hello Captain Occam. Being well-intentioned does not exempt you from following WP:3RR. If you join the discussion at WP:AN3 and promise to stop reverting the article, you may be able to avoid a block. It is not wise to refer to tag-teaming in your defence. Nobody is compelled to violate 3RR, regardless of what the other editors may be up to. You can start a WP:Request for comment if you want to attract the attention of more regular editors to a disputed point. EdJohnston (talk) 02:02, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I just read through a good part of the post on WP:RSN, and I agree with Ed that an RFC may help in this situation. It seems like the crux of the issue now is NPOV as opposed to whether or not the NYTimes source is reliable as well as its inclusion thereof. Do I understand that correctly?

Anyways, what I will go to the talk page and try to get something going here as far an RFC is concerned. That's the best way we can go at this point. MuZemike 18:52, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

"It seems like the crux of the issue now is NPOV as opposed to whether or not the NYTimes source is reliable as well as its inclusion thereof. Do I understand that correctly?"

Yeah, that's about right. I'm not actually convinced that Wikipedia's policies disallow the NYT article being cited for this, but at this point I think the larger NPOV issues deserve more attention that the inclusion or exclusion of a single citation.

Also, at the suggestion of the admin Dbachmann, I've brought up this issue at the administrators' noticeboard. There's also an issue of one particular user trolling this and similar topics, and while Dbachmann appears to think that blocking this user would be justified (the discussion about this is here), he also thinks he shouldn't do this himself, because Dbachmann occasionally edits these topics. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:11, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Recruiting help

slrubenstein's recruitment of help (as if there weren't enough help already):

1. 23:59, 9 October 2009 (hist | diff) User talk:Mathsci ‎ (→Race and intelligence: new section) (top)
2. 23:58, 9 October 2009 (hist | diff) User talk:Moreschi ‎ (→Race and intelligence: new section)
3. 23:56, 9 October 2009 (hist | diff) User talk:MastCell ‎ (→Race and intelligence: new section)

He is not going to give up, nor are the other editors. Nobody else seems to care about this article, but if you know any editors you may want to let them know. Getting blocked isn't going to help the article. They will do anything they can to get the blocks. They just want to censor the material. It's an "important" article and they know very well how it might affect people's thinking. I believe they want to remove/censor the statistical data entirely. That in particular is probably the motivating factor, that someone might look at the article and realize that X group really does have low IQs - the scientific, causation etc arguments are probably a secondary problem to these guys. Just my impression. Fixentries (talk) 23:30, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

October 2009

You have been blocked from editing for a period of 24 hours to prevent further disruption caused by your engagement in an edit war at Race and intelligence. During a dispute, you should first try to discuss controversial changes and seek consensus. If that proves unsuccessful you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection. If you believe this block is unjustified, you may contest the block by adding the text {{unblock|your reason here}} below.

Template:Z9 per this complaint at WP:AN3. EdJohnston (talk) 14:24, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

*sigh* --Aryaman (talk) 14:39, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I know you're looking for my advice about the race and intelligence article, so I should let you know that even though it was a 24-hour block and it's been more than 24 hours since I received it, I'm still not allowed to edit pages again yet (other than in my userspace). I'll give you my input there as soon as I'm able to. --Captain Occam (talk) 16:15, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Have they given you any kind of time regarding this? --Aryaman (talk) 19:07, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

It turned out to actually be around 30 hours. I think it's expired now, though, so I'll take a look at the discussion. --Captain Occam (talk) 00:01, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Award

		The Cluestick
		Captain Occam, despite the many dangers involved, has ably demonstrated that he, in fact, has a clue. Thus, I award him this cluestick. May its ample weight add to the swagger of his strut and the trepidation of his foes! —Aryaman (talk) 15:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Blocked

Following a report at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring I have examined the edit history Race and intelligence (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) from the time of the expiry of your previous block. Because you have continued to edit-war against multiple users over the same material, I have decided to block you from editing. Given your recent block in very similar circumstances, I have set the duration of the block to 72 hours. If you believe this block is unjustified, you may contest the block by adding the text {{unblock|your reason here}} CIreland (talk) 14:25, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

This is as a counterpoint to this user's statemement that his edits were "generally regarded as constructive".--Ramdrake (talk) 16:26, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

That comment was about one of the first two edits that T34CH reported me for, while my statement here was quite clear that it was the third and fourth edit which were regarded by consensus as being constructive, not the first and second.

This was a clever trick on your part, by the way. Even though the information you brought up was irrelevant to what I’d said, you were still able to influence the admin’s decision before it was made, because I wasn’t online to point out its irrelevancy until after it was already too late. If I ever want to learn how to game the system here, observing this type of conduct would certainly be an effective way to learn it. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:14, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Still, as pointed out by Verbal and Hiberniantears, two successive reverts which the majority of editors oppose is still edit-warring. This wouldn't have changed the outcome of this regarding whether or not you were edit-warring. You still were. You were asked to stop reverting, but couldn't help changing the section in question (twice more, at least) when in fact you were basically asked to leave it alone until an adequate consensus emerged (which still has to happen, although we're probably closer to it now). In short, please don't blame me; you brought this block upon yourself, irrespective of my intervention.--Ramdrake (talk) 22:21, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Ramdrake, I don't think coming here to rub Occam's nose in anything is very productive. Anyone of us could have pointed to the following series of edits:

• 16:22, October 11, 2009 [1]
• 16:36, October 11, 2009 [2]
• 17:46, October 11, 2009 [3]
• 19:34, October 11, 2009 [4]

That's 4 edits to the same sentence in 3 hours, which, if the same standards apply, would have earned you a block. Like someone else mentioned, it takes two to edit war, and you were on the other side of that one. --Aryaman (talk) 10:30, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

And I got a warning for that. My reply to Capt. Occam was to his insinuation that I acted maliciously in pointing out that editors had asked him to stop reverting without discussing, and nothing else. No use to keep throwing mud here. Also, you seem to forget that I self-reverted one of those edits.--Ramdrake (talk) 12:30, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

This user's unblock request has been reviewed by an administrator, who declined the request. Other administrators may also review this block, but should not override the decision without good reason (see the blocking policy).

Captain Occam (block log • active blocks • global blocks • contribs • deleted contribs • filter log • creation log • change block settings • unblock • checkuser (log))

---

Request reason:

Although my previous block was justified, in this case my four edits were more than 24 hours apart. I know I came close to violating 3RR here, but this was not an instance of deliberately obeying the letter of the rule while disobeying its spirit. In this case, both the third and fourth edits were supported by community consensus, as can be seen from this section of the article talk page. After I had made both of these edits, other users thanked me for doing so and/or stated that they approved of them, while no users expressed disagreement with either of them. Blocking editors for coming close to violating 3RR when they haven't actually violated it is generally reserved for disruptive edits, while these last two edits from me were generally regarded as constructive.

Decline reason:

You were blocked for edit warring this time, rather than a 3RR violation. You were in fact edit warring, and even admit that you were pushing the 3RR limit to disobey its spirit. The block is not a judgement on the veracity of your content contributions, but the manner in which you are going about these contributions. Hiberniantears (talk) 17:54, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

---

If you want to make any further unblock requests, please read the guide to appealing blocks first, then use the {{unblock}} template again. If you make too many unconvincing or disruptive unblock requests, you may be prevented from editing this page until your block has expired. Do not remove this unblock review while you are blocked.

I'm glad to see the stringency of the RfA process is finally paying dividends. Another fine analysis! :P --Aryaman (talk) 18:56, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

If consensus is with you, then there is no need to rush. Hold back and let someone else revert. In an area such as this holding back from reverting more than once would be a good thing for all involved, and notifying relevant boards of any ongoing problem. Verbal chat 21:44, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

VA: I notice it was T34CH again who reported this, the same user who gave you his "would you like a cookie?" response when you pointed out how he was violating NPOV. I'm beginning to wonder whether he's a sockpuppet, as he's also an SPA that suddenly began editing this topic two months ago. As can be seen here, I'm not the only person who suspects this about him; Fixentries appears to suspect it also.

Although I obviously can't do anything about this at the moment, you might want to try doing something about it if you suspect the same thing.

Incidentally, since nobody has objected to what I proposed in the "overall balance" section of the R&I talk page, over the next two and a half days I'll probably begin writing a revision to the "evidence for genetic factors" section, so that it'll be ready for me to add to the article after my block expires. You can let me know on my userpage if you have any comments about my doing this. I think it's particularly important for this section to be revised given the current structure of the article, in which the "Criticisms of hereditarian positions" section includes criticisms of arguments for the hereditarian perspective that aren't even mentioned in the "evidence" section. --Captain Occam (talk) 22:55, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry to see you be the victim of wiki-gaming editors and heavy-fingered admins. I tried to get the blocking administrator to reconsider his/her decision (here), but to no avail. In my opinion, T34CH is one of if not the most problematic editor involved in that article, and it could benefit simply if s/he would leave it alone. On a positive note, it seems Distributive Justice, Aprock and I are starting to form some backing for a consensus on the "Overview" section - which desperately needs to be replaced. I was also able to get a big chunk of text moved down to where it belongs - getting everything in its proper place seems the best way to start - we can work on balance after that. If you'd like to work on the Evidence for genetic factors, then I say go for it. Most of that article needs a solid rewrite as it is. Also, there needs to be some solid criticism of the environmental position (which will probably revolve around the high regard in which twin studies are held, as well as the fact that the hereditarian position is the only one that has provided a testable hypothesis - which is exactly why a great deal of the "support" for the environmental position is really an attempt to refute the evidence advanced by the hereditarian position - as though disproving the one equals proving the other). On the whole, however, I'd like to see the whole thing become far less polarized. If we take Neisser et al. as a guide on the overview, then we should be able to start presenting these views as variations on one theme, i.e. "In what proportions do the environment and genetics play in the development of intelligence?" That's the approach I would really like to see this article take. Well, I hope you are able to relax and enjoy your few days free of wiki-drama. See you on the other side! :) --Aryaman (talk) 01:48, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, but if it were up to me I’d probably want to discus this with CIreland a little more. If for no other reason, I still don’t understand what I should have done differently in this case. When community consensus determines that a sentence should be changed, someone will need to edit it; and when someone has made an edit to the article that everyone agrees is a violation of consensus and NPOV, someone will need to revert that edit. If I hadn’t been doing these things, it would have been someone else’s job to do them, and in that case it might have been them who was reported for edit warring rather than me. Should users be afraid to frequently make these kinds of edits, even if they don’t violate 3RR and the community agrees that they’re constructive? --Captain Occam (talk) 07:28, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

If you still don't understand this, you should look at CIreland's response to Aryaman before you asked this question.[5] CIreland claims my statements were never even evaluated. Only your actions. Even after my report had been made, you continued to edit war. I reported you because you were editing emotionally rather than logically (which was disrupting the discussion), and for no other reason. I do not think you are trolling or a sock. I do think that you are misjudging consensus, NPOV, and the arguments put forth by others. To both you and Aryaman, the "cookie" statement was made out of frustration that NPOV/UNDUE has been explained to the two of you without sinking in so many times that I didn't see a point in attempting again. T34CH (talk) 17:20, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

It'd pay to learn from those clowns... Fixentries (talk) 07:03, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Try WP:1RR out for a week and see if it doesn't improve your editing experience. Yesterday, you removed the Overview section and reverted to keep it out while editors were still talking about that section. Obviously things like that would meet some disagreement. Since your block, a multi-editor consensus is building to rewrite the Overview section with a number of solid improvements. That's the benefit of patience. You get a better article out of it with a whole lot less stress. Just try it out for a week once you are unblocked and see if it's better. --Nealparr ^{(talk to me)} 11:05, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

In a perfect world, reverting wouldn't even be an option other than to eliminate vandalism. Speaking of perfect worlds, it would have been ideal in that whole dispute to have an uninvolved admin willing to follow the discussion and monitor changes. T34CH would have been eliminated long ago as making more trouble with his/her edits than positively contributing to the article. Is T34CH a sock of some other user? I don't know. I do think I have a sock over at Race and crime, as s/he seems to pop up at the most convenient moments, but I'm not really interested enough in these kinds of users to investigate and document their behavior patterns. Either they make positive contributions or they don't. Thankfully, more neutral editors are becoming involved at Race and intelligence, and things are starting to look up. But, Nealparr is right: just stop reverting. Instead, bring it up on the talkpage - if necessary, message other editors on their userpages - and let them change it. One man standing up against a small group of editors sharing a bias is pretty much destined to lose if it goes to the noticeboards. That's Wikipedia. --Aryaman (talk) 14:09, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

There’s a reason why I’ve been so impatient about reverting obviously biased edits to this article, but it’s kind of difficult to explain without giving a background on this article’s history. To help understand this, I’d like you to look at the version of this article as of December 2006, last edited by Quizkajer. Although this version of the article has some issues related to organization, I think it’s hard to argue with the fact that it’s overall more informative, more balanced, and better-written than the current version. It also contains links to several sub-articles related to this topic, which have since been merged into the main article, and then subsequently had all of the merged content deleted. Despite the efforts of people like us, which can sometimes improve the article for a few months at a time, there has been a gradual but very steady decline in Wikipedia’s coverage of this topic over the past three years.

So what’s caused this decline? There are a few reasons it’s happened, but they all relate to the same basic cause, which is a group of editors who’ve been involved in this article for most or all of this time. I’m not going to name names, but you’re probably aware of who most of them are by this point. When people like us aren’t paying attention to the article, these editors can and do make whatever changes they want to it. When people like us are paying attention to it, they still make changes such as T34CH’s description of the hereditarian viewpoint as “fundamentally flawed”, and refuse to allow this information to be removed without a lengthy discussion resulting in consensus. More often or not, by working together they can prevent a consensus about this from being reached. When that happens, whatever changes they’ve made to the article become permanent.

In this case, if there are enough people who agree with us about this, we may be able to undo this change. This sort of thing has happened in the past also, and there have been temporary improvements in the article’s quality at several points during the past three years. But sooner or later, one of two things has usually happened. The first is that this group of editors has made a new round of changes, prevented there from being a consensus to undo them, and the people trying to undo these changes eventually gave up. (I know this is what eventually happened in Quizkajer’s case, and it appears to have been the same for Legalleft’s also.) The less common result is that people such as Quizkajer or Legalleft were able to obtain consensus to keep the article to a state where they were somewhat happy with, and then gradually forgot about it. In that case, the editors who wanted to make these changes simply waited a few months until the people wanting to prevent them were no longer active, and then went ahead and made the same changes they’d wanted to make originally, despite the fact that doing so went against the earlier consensus. We saw a little of that recently, when I was reverting a sentence that some of these editors were intent on changing, even though it had been previously established by a hard-won earlier consensus, and a new consensus for changing it had not been reached.

The bottom line here is that the article becoming less balanced and less informative is something that tends to essentially happen on its own, and has happened on its own for the past three years. As we saw in T34CH’s case most recently, doing this generally doesn’t require consensus. On the other hand making the article better, or even just undoing the changes that made it worse, tends to require so much effort from so many editors that it often isn’t possible. Considering the long-term effect that this trend has had on the article’s quality, I’m not able to easily tolerate letting one person’s biased edit become semi-permanent while we wait for consensus to remove it. Even if we might be able to obtain consensus to remove it in this case, most of the time doing this isn’t possible. --Captain Occam (talk) 05:56, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Let me just say that I sympathize with this perspective, and might even be for reverting to the 2006 version you display here as a basis for improvement. The current article is a cluster-mess of blech. Aprock (talk) 06:08, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

My block is set to expire in around 12 hours, but in the meantime I'd appreciate you (or Varoon Arya or Fixentries) doing something about the changes that T34CH is continuing to make. Along with several other POV edits, he's now removed any mention of IQ's social and functional significance. How to deal with the changes he made on October 17th has not been resolved yet, but now that everyone is busy dealing with his newest round of edits, it's becoming less likely that his earlier changes will receive the attention that's necessary for them to be fixed.

T34CH's edits during the past several days are a good example of the sort of thing that's happened repeatedly over the past three years to cause this article's steady decline. I think it's important to understand his edits as the likely next step in that process, if we don't find a way to prevent this from continuing. --Captain Occam (talk) 02:50, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

While some of his edits are over the line, most of them are in line. I just reviewed his last set, and for the most part they looked fine. But I do think reviewing previous "good" versions of the article would be very helpful. Aprock (talk) 04:49, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not touching that article. Problem is not enough help editing it. Also their general tactics as described below. This really requires a change in strategy. Fixentries (talk) 09:23, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I got involved and "interrupted" another of T34CH's editing runs, requesting that s/he explain what s/he's doing. S/He reported it at ANI. (If you'd like to see the results, look here.) Now s/he wants me to explain things in "excruciating detail". T34CH had admitted to not seeing the distinction between POV and non-POV edits. Would anyone care to explain to him/her the fine art of remaining neutral without insulting your reader's intelligence? --Aryaman (talk) 10:08, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I’ll help you as soon as I can, but my block hasn’t expired yet. This block also may end up being like the previous one, which lasted for several hours longer than it was supposed to.

Whether T34CH is a sockpuppet or not, I think we really need to do something about his conduct here. At this point, I’m no longer able to assume good faith about him; under what circumstances does a person ordinarily ever say that they demand something be explained to them in “excruciating detail”?

In addition to a possible sockpuppet investigation, you also might want to try bringing up this user’s behavior with an uninvolved administrator. The type of POV-pushing he’s engaged in is obvious enough that it seems like most administrators should be able to recognize it. --Captain Occam (talk) 11:12, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

There are so many amusing, funny, educational things about all this. There's no point in throwing yourself against a brick wall. See how these guys operate. See how they are so abusive, trolling, POV pushing, lying, enlisting help, etc. and that it works. Look at t34ch's edit history, and the boldness with which he has the audacity to accuse someone else of being a sock puppet. Whatever it is they do, you should learn how to do, or learn a countermeasure to. Fixentries (talk) 20:14, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Research is ongoing. By the way, is it normal for a new user to create a personal monobook.js file within 9 minutes of having made his first edit? Just curious... --Aryaman (talk) 04:22, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Occam, I'd suggest you take a deep look into the editing history of the editors involved at Race and intelligence, particularly T34CH, Ramdrake, Slrubenstein and Mathsci. While T34CH started his/her account on August 19, the other three provide hours of interesting and informative reading. Comparisons between the editing histories of these users are also quite illuminating. You'd be surprised how much a few of them have in common. ;) You might also be surprised to see how little they've actually contributed to the encyclopedia: for the last few months (and probably longer if you want to dig deeper), at least one editor has reverted and deleted nearly 6 times more information than he has added to the mainspace. But, surely, it was vandalism, right? No. One of the above-mentioned users removed 40,562 bytes of well-written, sourced material without batting an eye, with the edit summary "This is a controversial article; pls bring your changes to the talk page and gain consensus there before reintroducing." Of course, the IP editor never came back to discuss, so this just remained deleted.

From the little research I've done, I've convinced myself that there is practically nothing which can be done to stop these users, as they're not pushing any old POV, they are pushing the POV which Wikipedia wants pushed. While I stuck to editing topics with little to no controversy surrounding them, I was able to make some solid contributions to the project, and one article which I created and wrote even got listed as a "good" article, and remains so today. Naive and ignorant as I was, I did not realize that people would be allowed to commit and even be commended for the kind of behavior we see from these users on a regular basis.

I received an invitation to go on a camping trip starting this coming Friday, so I will be taking a short break from Wikipedia. Whether I come back to active editing depends on several things, but I probably won't be editing anything related to controversial topics such as this one again. I find that doing the grunt work of creating good articles is far more rewarding than dealing with this ultimately pointless bickering. My hat's off to you for being a stand-up guy, however. Wikipedia needs hoards more like you. :) --Aryaman (talk) 21:33, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Aryaman, you are heading down a fruitless path. You accuse Ramdrake of having a POV problem, then reprimand him for removing material that upholds that POV.[6] (and by the way: [7][8]) You complain that the removed material was so well written, but ignore that it is from a copyrighted source.[9][10] You accuse me of having a POV, but can't justify why you think that with diffs. Please please please overlook your emotional responses. They are clouding your judgment. T34CH (talk) 22:33, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Why are you here defending Ramdrake, T34CH? And why are you concerned enough to search for the reference I made, when I was quite particular about leaving it unknown as to whom I was referring? Or are you that familiar with Ramdrake's editing history? Oh, wait. Maybe it's because you made the exact same edit shortly thereafter. You even warned the contributing IP using WP:TW. By the way, I think that you, being a new user and all, deserve some kind of recognition for having learned to use Twinkle 10 days and 12 edits after creating your account. That has to be some kind of record. Maybe there's a barnstar for that kind of thing. I'll have to look it up.

While I'm at it, you should also be commended on your swift action regarding the numerous sockpuppets of Jagz, particularly when it is taken into consideration that Jagz was identified as a puppetmaster nearly a full year prior to your appearing on Wikipedia. Some around here would call that ancient history. Were it not for your outstanding research skills, Fixentries might not have been bothered by having a sockpuppet warning placed on his userpage. Well, in all honesty, you did have a little help in that from Slrubenstein and Ramdrake, as noted on your userpage. Regardless, I have to admit that I'm baffled as to how you, a new user with a little over a month's experience, understood Slrubenstein's rather cryptic message. (But isn't that a rather kind note from Ramdrake made in response to Slrubenstein's message? And he must have taken the words right out of your mouth. Why, in all my time here, I've never seen him smile to any... Wait, is that Ramdrake? There's no timestamp. But, of course it must be Ramdrake, as the diff shows. Somebody should remind him to sign his comments. Things could get confusing regarding identities and all.) Hell, I don't even understand why Slrubenstein was sending this message to you in the first place. But I guess that's what separates the mediocre editors from the pros.

As for your edits, you've said yourself that you can't see the difference, and you'd like me to explain it to you in excruciating detail. Unfortunately, this is not an adventure in experimental education. As I've indicated above, I'm rather tired of trying to explain things to you. Thus, why the show of concern? I'd think you, of all people, would be tickled pink to see me leave Race and intelligence well alone. ;) --Aryaman (talk) 01:25, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Aryaman, Ramdrake's edit which you are still going after was identical to one by your favorite admin (which I pointed out above). It was also a copyright violation. I didn't have to search for it because I remembered it. I made the exact same edit as well (as I pointed out above). The IP was repeatedly posting the same copyrighted material, but you've now proved to us twice that you don't really pay attention to other people's edits... you just jerk your knee. How heinous of us to remove it--regardless of the good reasons! You're grasping at straws, and encouraging Occam to do the same. Your description of the Jagz case also shows you didn't read the write-up (and that you are unclear about how sock investigations work). I don't care if you edit the article or not. What I do care about is that despite the evidence in front of your face that you're misreading the situation. Happy editing elsewhere.

Occam, I'm sorry this is playing out on your talk page. I've said before I thought you weren't malicious, you were mislead. This to me is more of the same. If you or anyone else have serious questions about some specific issue, I welcome them. But only by those who are reasonable. As for my former identity (and there are many many wikipedians with former identities... you might be quite surprised), I'm willing to email Aryaman's favorite administrator (dab)[11] about that, as he will be able to personally vouch for the fact that the accusations occurring here are fruitless. T34CH (talk) 02:45, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

You're missing the point - again - T34CH. You're defending Ramdrake's removal of the information. Fine. What you're ignoring is: Ramdrake's edit summary. (Hint: this was the point.) Ramdrake did not remove that information as a copy/vio. He edited it out on the grounds that the article is "controversial", using his standard procedure of WP:BRD. As can be surmised by his edit summary, he's simply reverting a huge block of well-written, sourced text. No mention of a copy/vio. He even suggests that the author bring it up for discussion on the talk page. Have I not made it painfully clear that it is the motivation behind these edits that I find so disagreeable? Perhaps I did not explain things in the "excruciating detail" you apparently require. Oh well. --Aryaman (talk) 03:56, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I didn't miss your point. I was merely pointing out that you were wrong. The IP's edits were bad (enough that 3 other editors agreed) and previously reverted for reasons already given by another editor (upon which Ramdrakes reasons were simply expanding). Ramdrake's motivation is far from what you're suggesting (especially given that he was reverting a POV similar to what you have repeatedly assumed to be his own). You're assumption that you have a clue what Ramdrake's (or anyone else's) motivation is has become detrimental to your reasoning. Take it to wp:COIN if you really believe it, but since you can't point to anything to back up your assumption you'd serve the project best by re-evaluating your opinion. T34CH (talk) 04:17, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

(Outdent) although I’m unblocked now, I guess I’ll continue discussing this here so the discussion can all stay in one place.

VA, what I was hoping would eventually happen with this article was that if enough people are involved in it who share our perspective, we’d be able to prevent people like T34CH from continuing to remove the information they don’t like. In addition to you and me, other people who appear to feel this way are Distributivejustice, David.Kane, Fixentries, and possibly Aprock. That makes six of us, and there are also six people who’ve been trying to censor the article. (In addition to the four you mentioned, there are also Alun and Muntuwandi.) As long as they don’t have the advantage of numbers, I would expect that at least in theory, the six of us should be capable of everything that the six of them can do.

If you decide to give up on this, though, I don’t think the remaining five of us will be able to accomplish very much, and not just because your absence would tip the numerical balance in their favor. Whether you realize it or not, you’ve taken on something of a leadership role with improving both this article and the Race and crime one, and I think the main reason for that is your apparent skill in researching these topics. You’ve impressed me a lot with this: I’ve been learning about topics related to race and intelligence for two years, ever since James Watson was forced into retirement because of his comments about this, but within the space of less than a month you appear to have learned close to the amount that I know about it.

The next thing I’ll probably want to pursue with this article is what Aprock suggested above: reverting the article to the version of it that existed in fall of 2006, while updating the things that need to be updated after three years. In addition to this being considerably better than the article’s current version, doing so would also satisfy another of the article’s needs, which is to have the attention of an expert in the relevant topics. The main person responsible for this article’s content in fall of 2006 was Quizkajer, who’s a professional geneticist with a Ph.D in that field. He was subsequently chased away by the people who want to censor the article, but even if he won’t be able to help us directly anymore, following his lead about the article’s structure would be the next best thing.

I probably won’t want to attempt this without your help, though, because the other four people who appear to agree with us don’t seem to be quite as diligent about improving this article as you are. On the plus side, though, there’s not really any hurry with this—if we’re going to revert the article to its 2006 version, whatever of POV-pushing changes they make before that won’t make a difference in the long run, and the 2006 version of the article obviously isn’t going anywhere. So it’s fine if you want to take a break, and I will also. I’m turning 26 on Saturday, and I ought to spend some time with my family on my birthday.

I hope you enjoy your trip. I would like you to let me know when you get back, though, and when and if you’ll be ready to work with me on returning the article to its 2006 state. When you get back I’d also like to open a sockpuppet investigation about T34CH, since you seem to have a greater familiarity with the evidence for him being one than I do. --Captain Occam (talk) 11:48, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Some perspective

Occy, it is a pity that some have to resort to censorship (pushing for blocks & deleting information). It is a tactic of desperation, and fear.

Consider that this page does not even have to be perfect for it to lead people to the correct information. Teach the controversy. All that people need to know is that an academic controversy exists. Any detail on top of that is gravy.

Curious people will then search off wiki where they can make up their own minds with the latest theories and research - in complete detail. It matters little what the 'social-contructers' state here. Intelligent people already recognise their stories as lies.

Intelligent people reading this live in the real world - they already *know* that the social-contruct alibis do not add up. In fact, they are so off base from reality as to be insulting.

I think that the actual scientific research should be published on here in full, *as well* as every behaviouralist alibi that is in fashion at the time. Let people make up their own minds. Eventually, this will be the case.

Best, anon 202.6.155.198 (talk) 10:10, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

If you have a strong opinion about this, I would appreciate you getting involved in trying to improve the article. One of the reasons why people who want to censor the article have been able to do so successfully is because most of the time they have the advantage of numbers. The more people there are who disagree with this, and who are actively involved in the article, the easier it’ll be to improve it. --Captain Occam (talk) 12:01, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I will help on the article but I haven't been watching it closely; I've got other (very) important stuff going on. The idea here is censorship. If we just match their edits with reverts, I think we will still get blocked. I'd say let any questionable content go till the end of the day and fix it all at once, that sort of thing. One edit a day is a good policy. If something in particular comes up feel free to drop me a note on my talk page. I will try to watch the article but again I have other more important things to focus on off-wikipedia. Good luck and thanks for your work. Fixentries (talk) 06:07, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I would appreciate both you and the anonymous IP giving me your opinions about what Aprock suggested, which I think is a good idea: reverting the article to the version of it that existed three years ago. As I said in my reply to VA, I think most people would probably agree that the 2006 version of the article is considerably better than the current one, and this method would probably have a greater chance of success than trying to reinsert the censored pieces of information one at a time. However, before I try to make such a large change to the article, I’d like to make sure I’m supported by the consensus of a large group of editors. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:06, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to point out, Captain Occam, that it is you who suggested to revert the article to the Dec 2006 version, and that Aprock merely said it might be a good idea (or at least it might be a good idea to look at all the past versions). Your own suggestion is even on this very page!!! I would also strongly advise against edit-warring tactics such as suggested by Fixentries above: these will in all likelihood only resutl in the article betting protected, editors being blocked, or both. Discussion of issues is still the best avenue for resolving our differences of opinion.--Ramdrake (talk) 12:30, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

“I'd like to point out, Captain Occam, that it is you who suggested to revert the article to the Dec 2006 version, and that Aprock merely said it might be a good idea (or at least it might be a good idea to look at all the past versions). Your own suggestion is even on this very page!!!”

If that’s what you think, then you haven’t been reading very carefully. This was what I said about the December 2006 version when I first brought it up:

“To help understand this, I’d like you to look at the version of this article as of December 2006, last edited by Quizkajer. Although this version of the article has some issues related to organization, I think it’s hard to argue with the fact that it’s overall more informative, more balanced, and better-written than the current version.”

That’s pointing out how the 2006 version is better than the current one, but I didn’t suggest we should actually revert back to it. Now, here was Aprock’s reply:

“Let me just say that I sympathize with this perspective, and might even be for reverting to the 2006 version you display here as a basis for improvement.”

After he suggested this, I repeated his suggestion in a subsequent comment because I approved of it. But if you look at the times of his comments and mine, you’ll see that Aprock suggested it before I did. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:26, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Please, it's very hard not to take your initial intervention as an unvoiced suggestion to revert to the Dec 2006 version. Aprock just said he might back the revert. He didn't make the original suggestion even if it was understood rather than overtly stated. I'm not playing that game of semantics.--Ramdrake (talk) 18:41, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Even though reverting to the 2006 version was an idea that I’d been privately considering ever since I saw how much better that version was than the current one, until Aprock’s comment I was avoiding mentioning this idea, because I assumed that nobody else would approve of it. I thought I knew how people like Aprock would react if I were to suggest this—“it’s 2009 now, so the content of the 2006 version is obsolete”, or something along those lines—so I thought that the 2006 version was only worth mentioning as a general example of the sort of structure the article ought to have. I didn’t realize this idea was something that other people would consider until I saw Aprock express his approval of it. I’ve known that the 2006 version of the article was better than the current one ever since I first became involved in this article, so if reverting to that version had been my goal all along, I would’ve suggested this a lot sooner than I did. --Captain Occam (talk) 19:25, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Please feel free to gather consensus around this proposal on the article's talk page.--Ramdrake (talk) 19:43, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I think I’ll keep this discussion on my user page for the moment. Wherever I end up discussing this, I’ll also need to link other people to my userpage in any discussion about it, since this is where it’s been discussed up to this point. This will be easier if I don’t have to link people to more than one discussion, and everything about it can be discussed in the same place. --Captain Occam (talk) 14:56, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Captain, just to make sure you're aware: the discussion for the rollback you have in mind must take place on the article's talk page so that all editors who follow the article and its discussion may have a chance to participate.--Ramdrake (talk) 19:40, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

What rule is that? Like the nasty underclasses table - what's to discuss. Why not just remove it, it's wrong. It's more a question of how many editors will hop in on it, isn't it? Fixentries (talk) 19:54, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Ramdrake, I'll be bringing it up there eventually, and won't attempt to make this change until after it's been discussed there. But when I'm first explaining my proposal to other editors, I'd like to keep the discussion about it in one place if possible.

Fixentries, do you have an opinion about what I'm proposing? --Captain Occam (talk) 22:17, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

My honest opinion is that I think the article has no value. If I were to write it, it would of course be very different. I would probably call the article Race and Soul. Fixentries (talk) 06:54, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, but that’s not very helpful. I agree that the article in its current state isn’t very good, but the important question is, how can it be improved? What I’d like to know is whether you agree that the December 2006 version of the article is better than the current one, and that reverting to this version would be useful as a step towards improving it. --Captain Occam (talk) 07:07, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

(reset indent lest we fall off the page!) As long as the discussion to attain consensus occurs on the article's talk page, I have no issue. But then, this is just Wiki-policy.--Ramdrake (talk) 22:24, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Your "proposal for the Race and intelligence article" is excellent. That old page is much better. David.Kane (talk) 02:59, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it's definitely worth considering. The currently article has a large number of deficiencies. Perhaps a different starting point would help. --Distributivejustice (talk) 06:07, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Blog postings

You made the comments yourself, and you posted a link to those comments on your wikipedia talk page [12]. I learned of your blog post from your talk page. If you don't want Wikipedians to see your blog postings, then don't bring them to Wikipedia. Wapondaponda (talk) 12:42, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Let's talk about this on your user page, rather than on mine. --Captain Occam (talk) 12:54, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Did you know...?

...that "there is less mtDNA difference between dogs, wolves and coyotes than there is between the various ethnic groups of human beings?" Or that there is a greater genetic difference within a single dog breed such as that of the Poodle than there is between dogs and wolves?

I wonder what the genetic variation within the herring population is? --Aryaman (talk) 23:00, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, and I suspect that I know this for the same reason that you do. It sounds to me like you’ve found some of Jason Malloy’s writings.

He’s one of my favorite writers about this topic. If you haven’t already, you should read his article about James Watson.

I think it's a very old lie and one can gather a lot about where it came from. Time to do something about it. Fixentries (talk) 17:15, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I wrote this after reading the article The Genetic and Evolutionary Significance of Human Races by Alan R. Templeton, purportedly one of the best presentations on why "race is a biologically defenseless concept". His argument struck me as potentially compelling until I realized what it meant in terms of "the big picture". Templeton writes: "One should note that many current evolutionary biologists completely deny the existence of any meaningful definition of subspecies, as argued originally by Wilson & Brown, 1953." I almost fell off my chair when I read that. Of course, Templeton does not take this position himself; he instead takes an intermediary position which gives very specific requirements for what is and what is not a subspecies - safely placing humans just below the threshold. So I wanted to find out what these requirements meant in relation to other species.

Now, in my opinion, domesticated animals such as the dog, the horse, and the cow provide us with a great frame of reference, because (a) we are most familiar with these animals, with their "breeds" and their well-documented physiological and behavioral differences, and (b) we have had a large hand in shaping these animals, applying selective breeding techniques not unlike those we have applied to ourselves over much of our history. Formulated in a different way, my question became: What would happen if we applied the same rules regarding human "races" to one of these animals? I took the Canis family, and did some research. The information above comes from Cambridge University, so I assume it is relatively reliable. And it tells us that "there is less mtDNA difference between dogs, wolves and coyotes than there is between the various ethnic groups of human beings". This amazed me. Dogs, wolves and coyotes? We're talking about members of a genus here. But, those are the facts, biologically speaking. Dogs, wolves, coyotes, and jackals, despite their differences in physiology, can all interbreed. In fact, the current state of genetic research tells us that no one breed of domestic dog is "closer" to the wolf than any other, and that, biologically speaking, the wolf is simply another kind of "dog" in that it is not to be seen as the predecessor of the dogs we keep in our homes. And what about the degree of variation within populations versus variation between populations? Apparently, the same rule holds true for Canis: regardless whether we take Poodles or Doberman Pinschers, a single dog breed shows more genetic variation within its population than there is between dogs and wolves collectively. Amazing, isn't it?

I wanted to pursue this line of thinking further. In particular, I wanted to know if experts considered animal breeds to be "social constructs" in much the same way as human races to be "social constructs". And what do you know? That holds true, too. As the Wikipedia article on dog breed explains: "Dog breeds are not scientifically defined biological classifications, but rather are groupings defined by clubs of hobbyists called breed clubs." Simply amazing!

Now for the really interesting part: tests have been developed to measure "canine IQ". According to Stanley Coren, professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia, the Border Collie, the Poodle, and the German Shepherd are the three most adaptively intelligent dog breeds. The Basset Hound, the Bulldog and the Beagle rank near the bottom. Cohen notes that "the dogs that are the brightest dogs in terms of school learning ability tend to be the dogs that are much more recently developed". At this point, my eyebrows arched. Think of the implications! Ah, but maybe Coren's results are less than ideal, primarily because he's testing for obedience, merely one trait which could be construed as "intelligence" among canines. Fair enough. In fact, Coren himself distinguishes between three types of canine IQ: (1) Adaptive intelligence (individual dependent; measured by IQ); (2) Instinctive intelligence (individual dependent; measured by IQ): and (3) Working/Obedience Intelligence (breed dependent). Other researchers have found that results vary depending upon what exactly is being tested for. As Scott & Fuller note in their Genetics and the Social Behavior of the Dog:

On the basis of the information we now have, we can conclude that all breeds show about the same average level of performance in problem solving, provided they can be adequately motivated, provided physical differences and handicaps do not affect the tests, and provided interfering emotional reactions such as fear can be eliminated. In short, all the breeds appear quite similar in pure intelligence. On the other hand, we have evidence from the delayed-response test that there are enormous individual differences within breeds for developing certain capacities. Whether or not these are inherited can only be determined by selection and crossbreeding experiments within breeds.

Well, that is comforting to all the Bulldogs out there, I suppose. But, where are the aptitude differences in breed which affect performance in IQ testing, such as motivation levels and emotional reactions, coming from? Well, Scott & Fuller were interested in knowing this, too. So, they did studies on cross-fostered pups, on pups reared in a mixed-breed setting, and on pups reared in isolation. Guess what they found:

The outcomes of all such experiments were consistent: breed characteristics persisted in all cross-fostered pups, in isolation-reared pups, and in pups transferred after some weeks or months to a litter of a different breed. Because of these consistent results, we believe that genetic contributions to breed differences overshadow environmental contributions.

In other words, if you correct for the genetic contribution to the differences in breed, you arrive at an equivalent result in IQ for all breeds. Well now! That is informative!

Suddenly I was reminded of a passage from Jensen where he discusses the correlation between cranial volume, neural density and IQ performance. Simply put, if you take people with an equivalent cranial volume and neural density and test them for IQ, you will find the two correlate to an amazing degree, just as the Default Hypothesis predicts. Now, it has been established beyond a reasonable doubt that (a) cranial volume is determined by genes, and (b) average cranial volume varies considerably between human populations (i.e. "races" or "populations sharing a particular genetic cluster" or whatever term we're allowed to use). And, as Jensen points out, if we control for cranial volume, we can all but eliminate differences in IQ between populations, racially defined or otherwise. Jensen points out, however, that not enough research has been done to show whether these populations actually have the same neural density. If that is the case, however - and there seems to be no evidence pointing in the other direction - then what we have here is a clear-cut case of genetic influence upon overall IQ.

But, wait. What am I saying? Dog breeds are not "scientifically defined biological classifications", they are "social constructs", in much the same way that human races are "social constructs". Any research which claims that there is a predominately genetic contribution to breed differences in dogs is just as wrong-headed as research which claims there is a predominately genetic contribution to racial differences in humans. Right? Um... right? --Aryaman (talk) 16:34, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

One problem I see in this line of reasoning is that it relies on evidence from mitochondrial DNA. This evidence only tells how many generations removed two individuals are. It does not say anything about the actual genetic difference between two individuals (as the mitochondria are separate from the cell nucleus). As the original source of the above quoted statement points out, this is actually proof that genetic differentiation within dogs (in their actual genetic code) happened extremely rapidly. "On the other hand, it is often said that no other group in the animal kingdom has achieved such a diversity of form in so short a time as C. Familiaris. Variation within this species is greater than between all the rest of the canids." T34CH (talk) 16:53, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

It's not a 'line of reasoning', T34CH. It's a series of more or less random observations I made while reading various pieces of literature related to this general topic. Templeton's article is well-written and well-argued. I was honestly surprised to learn that the very notion of subspecies is under attack as being nearly impossible to objectively define and thus biologically meaningless. If that's true, then I can certainly see Templeton's presentation as a persuasive one, and it certainly is a clever solution to the "problem" of race. But then arises the question: is such a division - even a more moderate one such as Templeton proposes - useful outside this particular domain? Does it correspond with our real-world experience? While it might work well for a geneticist in the laboratory (and even that is questionable), it directly confounds the knowledge humans have gained about "breeds" and "races" through generations of practical, hands-on experience. Tell a "simple" cowhand that the behavioral differences between two breeds of working dog are the product of environment and not "in its blood", and he'll laugh all the way down to the watering hole and back again. Maybe, however, genetic research is overstepping its boundary by making these kinds of claims. We still have an enormous amount to learn. That's the stance that Jensen takes on the issue, and I am strongly inclined to agree with him. I do think that, if research is allowed to continued unhampered by socio-political ideologies, much of Jensen's research will be confirmed. If not, that's nothing to cry about, either. But it must be remembered that all he is arguing for is that genes play some role in the development of IQ. His real opponents are those who say IQ is 100% determined by the environment. I personally do not see how anyone could claim such a thing, as there is an overwhelming body of evidence which demonstrates the opposite. The articles here on WP should reflect that. Instead, it's reflecting the position of those who are morally outraged and scandalized by the very hypothesis that IQ could be, in part, genetically influenced. That is a sad but true fact. --Aryaman (talk) 17:33, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

The "line of reasoning" I was referring to relates to the comments you made about dog breeds. Your statement "Dog breeds are not "scientifically defined biological classifications", they are "social constructs". Any research which claims that there is a predominately genetic contribution to breed differences in dogs is just as wrong-headed as research which claims there is a predominately genetic contribution to racial differences in humans." does not follow from Coppinger & Schneider's statement about mtDNA. The mtDNA evidence does not establish that the genetic similarity of dog breeds, only the evolutionary proximity. T34CH (talk) 17:51, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

In classic T34CH style, you've missed the point entirely. Besides that, you're misrepresenting what I said. But what's new? --Aryaman (talk) 18:23, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I gathered you were being highly sarcastic, but the fact is that equating dog breeds to human races is not a valid comparison. You seem to be asking, "If dog DNA is so similar but creates so much phenotypic differentiation, shouldn't we expect human DNA (which according to Coppinger & Schneider is even more differentiated than dog DNA) to also create phenotypic differences... such as intelligence?" Unfortunately, if that is your thesis, it fails because it conflates DNA with mtDNA; just because mtDNA is so similar does not mean the actual DNA is similar. If that is not your thesis, please, what is it? T34CH (talk) 18:47, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Someone previously brought up the discussion of the diversity of dog DNA. I think the Serpell book from 1995 is somewhat dated now. this study states that wolves, coyote and dogs share a common ancestor who lived 1.5-4.5 million years ago. Human share a mitochondrial ancestor who lived 150,000- 200,000 years ago so the Serpell statement doesn't add up. Humans are indeed genetically more diverse than the domesticated dog. But this is because the domesticated dog is said to have first appeared 16,000 years ago, while anatomically modern humans are thought to have emerged 200,000 years ago. It also should be noted that of the 200,000 years since the emergence of homo sapiens, about 150,000 years humans were confined to the African continent, it is during this time that the bulk of human mitochondrial diversity evolved. When humans migrated out of Africa, there was a population explosion, from a few thousand individuals to the 6 billion today. This explosion has also contributed to mtDNA genetic diversity as genetic diversity is proportional to population size. In short the Serpell statement about humans being more diverse than canids might be misleading.

The dog is an interesting case in population genetics because it is interfertile with other canids and technically still the same species. Despite this the dog has enormous variation in morphology and even behavior( Great Dane to Chihuahua). The problem is can we impose what we know about dogs and other domesticates onto humans. Yes and no. Yes because the evolution of dogs and canids has been by natural selection, the same as any other species. No, because the evolution of dogs has involved artificial selection by humans. Dogs reach reproductive maturity anywhere between 4 months and 18 months, and can have up 14 pups per litter and three litters in a year. A generation for humans is roughly 20 years and humans typically only have one child at a time. So within a single human generation there is enough time for several thousand puppies to descend from a single dog. All this means by breeding dogs, there are enough reproductive events for evolution to take place within the lifetime of a person. Dimitri Belyaev selectively bred over 45,000 wild foxes in 40 years to end up with the domesticated silver fox. One more factor to consider is that humans practice incest avoidance whereas breeders encourage inbreeding, so for humans some genetic diversity has been desirable to avoid inbreeding depression. In summary artificial selection operates at a much faster rate than natural selection, so the evolution of the dog and other domesticates has been much faster than human evolution. This should be kept in mind when comparing dog breeds to human "races". Wapondaponda (talk) 19:11, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I suppose some of the confusion here has to do with the statement "there is less mtDNA difference between dogs, wolves and coyotes than there is between the various ethnic groups of human beings" - the inference being that I am somehow claiming something to the tune of: (A) If there is more difference between human racial/ethnic groups than between dogs, wolves and coyotes, and (B) If dogs, wolves and coyotes are to be considered subspecies, then (C) Human racial/ethnic groups should also be considered subspecies. I'm sorry if I was insufficiently clear, but this is most certainly not my point. My point is that, if this is the best genetic research can give us regarding the very real, observable, measurable, testable, heritable behavioral differences between "breeds" of dogs, horses, cows, (or humans, for that matter), then either (a) genetic research has not yet advanced to the level at which it can say anything of real value on this matter, or (b) genetic research, with the limitations it places upon itself, is inherently incapable of ever providing a satisfactory answer. However, that is assuming that the concept of subspecies is, in fact, genetically indefensible. I'm still pondering that issue. Given the discussion in Templeton, I sense myself leaning strongly towards that view. At least, I can see that there is a lot of truth in the statement that most of our divisions of species into subspecies have been based upon a superficial examination of outward appearances (which is really all we had to go on when we started classifying animals) and not upon genetic evidence, which has only become an object of study relatively recently. And really, isn't that the aspect we most commonly use to identify human races? The color of skin, the shape of hair cross sections, the shape of noses, cranial volumes and proportions, etc.? Genetic research could show that the very practice of classifying animals into subspecies is wholly misguided. However, if this does end up being the final word of genetics on this matter, then it will only go to show that genetics is not where the answer is to be found. At least, not all of the answer. And to preempt the obvious rebuttal: it's not to be found in sociology alone, either. That has been sufficiently proven.

I have seen this very debate come up in other disciplines, particularly in the field of linguistics. In that context, the question is whether a particular historic language such as Old High German ever really existed, and whether it makes any sense to speak of it as a real thing. It is a fact that Old High German was never standardized, and only existed as a collection of regional dialects which made some sound changes in something resembling unison. It is also true that each of those dialects made changes which the other dialects in the continuum did not make, some of those being unique to the dialect, while others were shared with neighboring dialects. In fact, to be as accurate as possible, we would have to say that each monument preserves its own unique dialect. If you look at the phenomenon of language in a particular way long enough, it becomes tempting to think of individual sound laws as the real "entities" under observation, and the "languages" as nothing more than the medium in which they are born, grow and move, consuming parts of former dialectical continuums as they do so, and then dying out as they are overtaken by new sound laws, yet passing on their own kind of "genetic residue" to the next generation. Thought of in this way, a "language" is merely a clustering of particular sound laws at a particular point in time, nothing more than an idea which serves to denote something with no basis in objective reality. No pre-modern "language" was a clearly demarcated entity which did not share attributes with other neighboring languages, and if pressed, the existence of Old High German as a linguistic reality relies upon one sound law only - and even that law has come under attack as being incapable of providing the necessary evidence to support the claim. Fortunately, however, linguists realized that, though this kind of thinking is certainly very interesting, it is ultimately fruitless and perhaps even counterproductive when viewed in light of the ultimate purpose of linguistics itself. While understanding sound laws is a very important part of linguistics, we cannot allow our fascination with them lead us to deconstruct the very thing an understanding of which linguistics intends to promote. Thus, every textbook on linguistics still refers to Old High German as a language, though it will certainly mention the fruits of the discussion related above.

Given my reading of Templeton, it is my belief that this general discussion has entered the same kind of impasse. Is "race" a real thing? Well, we certainly can deconstruct it to the point of meaninglessness. Yes, we can identify clusters of genes which more or less correspond with conventional notions of race, but this is to assume that the concept of race is a meaningful one to begin with. And that's the point. Is "race" a meaningful concept? We might as well be asking: Is "language" a meaningful concept? Yet, why is it that we can answer the latter question so unhesitatingly in the affirmative, yet the former question causes even the greatest of minds to take a deep breath before attempting an adequate response? Of course, that's a rhetorical question and the answer is obvious. But I share Jensen's hope that this socio-politically driven deconstructionism will one day halt in favor of good sense, and that the academic community can return to simply reporting the results of well-conducted, meaningful research, and not merely commenting upon the supposed moral depravity of some of its members. --Aryaman (talk) 00:26, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

We actually agree on many points. One thing I think is important to keep in mind is context. Is race a meaningful concept when dealing with social issues, geo-political disputes, and heretable diseases? Of course. Is it important to keep race (and in this case I mean cultural background) in mind when approaching a classroom or writing a test question? Yes. Does genetic race figure into differences in general intelligence? I honestly don't think that a study with enough controls has been constructed to answer that definitively, and I think that's what reviews--such as Knowns and Unknowns--tell us. The issue I have with Jenson et al is (ironically) the pedigree of his research... those who preceded him and mentored him were obviously prejudiced. Many of those who helped popularize mass testing in the early/mid 1900s did so with an aim towards eugenics. But the field is clearly moving towards a day when suspicions of prejudice (from "both" sides of the debate) will fade, and focus will fall upon how to create truly meaningful studies. I just don't think we've reached that point yet. T34CH (talk) 02:24, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

While I’ve got some suspicions of prejudice towards a few researchers in this area (mainly Richard Lynn), Jensen is one person for whom I’ve always been confident that this isn’t the case. If you know anything about Jensen’s politics, you’ll be aware that he’s always been a fairly liberal Democrat, and that with the exception of his views on race and IQ, his opinions are the polar opposite of what one would expect from a person who’s prejudiced against minorities. In one of the interviews with him about this that I’ve read, he described how he was active in the social justice movement of the 1960s, and it was difficult for him to bear the way his colleagues from that community reacted to his IQ research. But he continued pursuing it anyway, because he believed that scientific impartiality had to come before politics. I think this is pointed out in Frank Miele’s book Intelligence, Race, and Genetics: Conversations with Arthur R. Jensen.

Whether his theories are correct or not is another question, but I think that based on Jensen’s political background, we can be fairly certain that the motives for his research don’t have anything to do with prejudice, and only with a genuine desire for scientific inquiry. --Captain Occam (talk) 04:40, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

What makes you think people don't lie about their politics/loyalties? Fixentries (talk) 07:06, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I certainly believe that many people do lie about such things. But one thing I truly admire about Jensen is that he has never used his racial/ethnic background to silence his opponents who claim he must have some "racialist agenda". --Aryaman (talk) 07:19, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Re: Reliability of self-identification

I saw that you're involved in a discussion which touches on this subject - you also found the Nature article which explains why blanket rejections of race are inaccurate - so I thought I'd drop you a note.

Studies which have been conducted with the purpose of testing the reliability of self-identification methods confirm that there is a very high correspondence between the results of self-identification and objective expert (specifically trained) identification. A 2002 study which tested this correlation in regards to skin color as a phenotypic trait indicative of race found an "excellent" correlation for white and black participants, and a "good" correlation for persons of mixed ancestry (check the study for the specific numbers). They conclude that self-identification is a reasonably reliable method for ascertaining race in health-related (epidemiological) surveys. A somewhat earlier (1995) study reports similar findings, i.e. very high reliability for whites, somewhat less for blacks, and much less for Asians/Pac. Islanders and Native Americans. A 1997 study again confirms the same thing, giving an overwhelming overall consistency (96.7%), very high for whites and blacks, and showing inconsistencies for people of "other" race (Hispanics were apparently the main source of confusion). Smith (1997) points out:

On the one hand, the absence of precise, scientific standards for racial classification in general and the problem of assigning mixed-race people in general argues in favor of self-identification. Race, so this point of view goes, is a matter of psychological affiliation with a group and only the individual can express his/her identification. On the other hand, while acknowledging the absence of codified and purely objective standards, race is not a groundless concept and most researchers and respondents have a shared idea of what the term refers to.

Admittedly, this merely confirms that the popular conceptions of race among (a) members of the general population and (b) specifically trained observers are nearly uniform (up to ca. 97%). It does not show that the popular conceptions of race actually correspond to anything which which concerns science. For that, we have to turn to specific studies:

• "Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters [White, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic], which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity."[13]

That's a 99.86% correspondence. Even studies which are highly critical of the use of self-identification admit that there is a direct correlation between self-identification results and genetic differences:

• "It is clear that genetic differences exist between human populations. These genetic differences are loosely correlated with socially defined race which is largely based on skin color."[14]

Thus, to argue that "that the traditional conceptions of race have little to nothing to do with biology", as Ramdrake appears to be doing, is simply not backed up by the research. --Aryaman (talk) 20:03, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. What would you think of getting involved in the discussion with Ramdrake and Alun about this? If the information I quoted from the Nature study isn't enough to convince Ramdrake that his opinion about this is mistaken, perhaps he would be convinced by the additional material you've found. --Captain Occam (talk) 20:26, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes thanks for fact checking those guys. Fixentries (talk) 05:08, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Snyderman and Rothman (study)

I noticed you found the original AfD on this article. I'm not sure if you're aware of the drama which followed, but I'm sure you can find it with a little searching if you care to inform yourself. Judging by the current voting pattern, the article will be saved for now, and will be eligible for re-listing at AfD in about a month's time. Something tells me T34CH will push for deletion as soon as it becomes possible, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now I'm focused on improving the article, and if you review the recent history, you'll see that I've made some drastic changes - which, when viewed together, result in a dramatic improvement (in my opinion). I'd like to request that you use any resources you may have at your disposal to help out. I've done just about everything I can do from here barring making a trip to the library - which I may do sometime soon anyway. Any help - even if it's only a sourced statement or two - would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 19:50, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I’ll look sometime soon, but I’m pretty busy with the race and genetics article at the moment. I find that it gets too hectic for me when I’m trying to devote this kind of attention to more than one article at a time. This is the same reason why I haven’t been working on the race and intelligence article lately, although I intend to get back to it eventually. --Captain Occam (talk) 20:56, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Topic ban

Hi Occam. :)

I've tried to inject some neutrality in some of the race-related articles here (Race and crime in the United States, Race and intelligence, Race and genetics, Snyderman and Rothman (study), etc.), but with little lasting result. Now Mathsci is talking about a topic ban on the grounds that I'm a "disruptive" editor. My stomach turned when I read that, as I was already pretty sick of the antics around here. In the absence of a truly "right" orientation, the "left" manages to portray the center as "the new right". If you don't take sides in a controversy, you're automatically suspect of taking a "racialist" perspective, and you're labeled a "disruptive editor" with the audacity to propose that Wikipedia treat a subject with impartiality. I requested that he go ahead with filing a report to get me banned, as I consider it an easy litmus test as to whether I want to continue contributing to this project. As for the present, I'm taking a short break from active editing. I can't assume anything resembling "good faith" on the part of several editors. I understand that this project has inherently low standards, but this is past the point of acceptability. Feel free to contact me on my talkpage if I can do some research or something specific for you. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 16:46, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Where is the idea of a topic ban being discussed? I’d like to be able to participate in this discussion. --Captain Occam (talk) 17:07, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

After looking at the Race and Intelligence talk page as well as as Mathsci's userpage, I think I probably misunderstood your comment. I was under the impression that Mathsci had already reported you for this, but it looks like he hasn't yet.

I think he probably isn't going to. Despite his bias with regard to this topic, I think he's probably aware that most other editors wouldn't consider your contributions "disruptive". --Captain Occam (talk) 17:44, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

0RR restriction for both of you on Race and Genetics

Let's make this easy for you...

You're both edit warring over the image. I don't care to delve into correctness of the content issue.

Rather than pick one of you as "at fault" here I am simply imposing the following - you are both on 0RR (may not revert, in any way) on the article Race and Genetics, for the next month (as you've been doing this for at least that long so far). You both should have known better than to do this, and could have handled it in another nonconfrontational manner. Both of you are playing the abusive edits game - and you're both on time out.

If you can edit the article without reverting anyone over the next month, feel free. I don't see any sign you're being disruptive other than with the edit warring. But revert and be blocked.

Cc'ed at ANI, User talk:Captain Occam, and User talk:Muntuwandi Georgewilliamherbert (talk) 05:10, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Sad to see this result. Your contributions are much appreciated. David.Kane (talk) 17:04, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I don’t consider this a total loss, though. As I said here, I think the important thing is just that Muntuwandi can’t keep pushing his POV there by continuing to revert, and I trust you and Varoon Arya to do a good job making the article balanced even if I can’t help with this much anymore. --Captain Occam (talk) 17:30, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Ferahgo the Assassin

Could you please explain this edit [15]? This editor had never prior to this point edited any Race articles. He has, however, been doing so very recently. It looks like a sockpuppet account. Mathsci (talk) 10:10, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I know this user outside of Wikipedia, so I know from my interaction with her elsewhere that she sometimes cares about topics such as these. However, she rarely gets involved in them (at Wikipedia or elsewhere), and doesn’t always agree with me about them. As you can see from the fact that she didn’t respond to my request about the race and crime article, the fact that I know her elsewhere isn’t a guarantee that she’ll take my side about any particular issue here.

The request I made on her userpage about this article was something I copy-pasted to several users who I thought might care about it; I didn’t bother re-wording it for users who hadn’t actually been involved in it before. I suppose you could consider this to have been canvassing (although the editors I contacted included those who disagreed with me about the re-creation of this article), but it doesn’t justify accusations of sockpuppetry.

I don’t consider this situation considerably different from the situation with T34CH, assuming T34CH isn’t an actual sockpuppet account. He obviously isn’t a new user, and the comments on his talk page make it clear that Slrubenstein already knows him. --Captain Occam (talk) 20:33, 12 November 2009 (UTC)