Talk:Bias in Mental Testing

This article was nominated for deletion on 16 February 2014 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep.

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Neutrality

While I appreciate that this is a newly-created article, and thus a work in progress, it seems to me that it will require considerable work to meet the required neutrality standards. It seems to be presenting Jensen's conclusions as 'facts', rather than the controversial opinions they undoubtedly are. This is a controversial topic area, and any Wikipedia article on the subject needs to reflect accurately the academic consensus on the subject, rather than acting as a platform for one particular viewpoint. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:47, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

When I was researching this article, one thing which was apparent is that in secondary sources from the 1990s and later, the conclusions of Bias in Mental Testing seem very widely accepted. The article cites two textbooks that consider it the definitive work about test bias, and there are others. Jensen's conclusion that there is a genetic component to race differences in average IQ is still very controversial, but his conclusion that IQ tests are accurate for all native English speakers in the US seems to be much less controversial. The 1999 literature review is another example. In recent secondary sources that summarize the field of IQ research, what specific criticisms do you think I've left out? Zeromus1 (talk) 23:09, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Rather than try to answer this myself (I don't currently have access to much of the literature), I've posted a neutrally-worded request at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Psychology suggesting that project members take a look at the article - they may well be able to offer useful input regarding the neutrality issue. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:48, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Jensen's findings on test bias were confirmed in a 1982 report by a 19-member expert panel appointed by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council (Wigdor, A.K. & Garner, W.R. [1982]. Report of the National Research Council Committee on Ability Testing). The report concluded that IQ tests are not biased against any English-speaking minority group.

The 1996 APA report on intelligence also agreed that IQ tests are not biased against African-Americans:

The differential between the mean intelligence test scores of Blacks and Whites (about one standard deviation, although it may be diminishing) does not result from any obvious biases in test construction and administration, nor does it simply reflect differences in socioeconomic status.

The same consensus that IQ tests are not racially biased is reflected in more recent sources as well, such as the new textbook by Nicholas Mackintosh ("IQ and Human Intelligence", pp. 351-356). I do not see any evidence for the claim that this article does not meet NPOV requirements, so I'm removing the neutrality template.--Victor Chmara (talk) 04:30, 8 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Probably the most biased article on Wikipedia. This one needs major restructuring. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.188.185.139 (talk) 11:59, 1 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

'a citation classic'

There seem to be two sources cited for this claim. The first [1] appears to have been written by Jensen himself, while the second comes from Helmuth Nyborgs The Scientific Study of General Intelligence: Tribute to Arthur R. Jensen. I'd suggest that neither Jensen himself, nor a 'tribute' written about him would be adequate sources for it to be suggested that Jensen's book "is sometimes called a citation classic". Are there other, less obviously partisan sources that support the claim? AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:56, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not aware of any others, but I think you're misunderstanding the significance of the Current Contests article. Even though the article itself is written by Jensen, Jensen is NOT who chose for BIMT to be listed as a citation classic. The decision whether to list a book as a citation classic in Current Contests is made by Eugene Garfield, the journal's editor. When he decides to name a book as a citation classic, he then asks the book's author to write a brief summary about it. This page gives more detail about this. I think that Eugene Garfield's decision to list BIMT as a citation classic is a reliable source for calling it one. Zeromus1 (talk) 23:27, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It is a reliable source for a statement that Garfield called it one. It isn't a reliable source for an assertion in Wikipedia's voice that it is one. Wikipedia doesn't make such assertions. The views in a 'reception' section should be attributed to those who hold them. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:34, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I changed that part of the article to attribute it to a specific source. I think it's better to attribute it to the journal than to the editor of the journal, because I'm not certain that Eugene Garfield is CC's only editor. Zeromus1 (talk) 23:58, 7 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The citation needed tag

Yesterday AndyTheGrump added a citation needed tag to the phrase "The book is based on the fact that the average IQ of African Americans is approximately 15 points lower than that of White Americans". I think this phrase is supported by Time magazine article being cited, including the use of the word "fact". The source cited for this paragraph says, "Jensen's original argument was based on a disquieting set of facts: during two generations of IQ testing, blacks have consistently scored 15 points lower than whites, and no one has yet designed a reputable test on which blacks do as well as whites." I think this wording in the article is supported by the sentence I quoted from the source, so I'm removing the citation needed tag. Other people are welcome to suggest a better wording for this sentence, if there's a more accurate way to summarize what the source says. Zeromus1 (talk) 08:31, 9 October 2012 (UTC) [reply]

~~Oh, that's odd. I guess Victor Chmara fixed this right when I was about to fix it. Zeromus1 (talk) 08:36, 9 October 2012 (UTC)~~[reply]

It needs a citation. We don't cite 33-year old Time magazine book reviews for assertions of scientific 'fact'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:58, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's the same age as the book that it's describing. I thought that if we're describing the basis for a book published in 1980, it would be acceptable to use a source that's the same age. What kind of source does this need? The 1996 report from the APA that Victor Chmara quoted above also mentions that the gap is 1 standard deviation, which is the same as 15 points. Zeromus1 (talk) 13:56, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If we are claiming as a fact that "the average IQ of African Americans is approximately 15 points lower than that of White Americans" we need a citation to back it up. A recent one, given the statement that "it may be diminishing" from the source that Victor Chmara quotes above. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:06, 9 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all. I noticed this dispute and preformed an edit that I thought might be acceptable for all interested parties. Basically I a) found an appropriate reference, and b) added a link the broader race and intelligence controversy. The latter I think helps with the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view concerns raised by AndyTheGrump. That is, it makes the political context in which the book was developed quite explicit to the reader. Actually, hopefully this helps avoid future redundancy as there is no need to replay the entire debate in this page as well. Instead, this page can focus on issues specific to the contents and publication of the work. Cheers and I hope this helps Andrew (talk) 07:21, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Victor Chmara, if you're dissatisfied with Andrew's wording for this sentence, could you please add a sourced summary that you think is accurate? Your revert removed a source and replaced it with a citation needed tag. Although I'm not certain this sentence needs a source other than the Time magazine article, I think it's better for it to have a source than for it to be tagged as needing one. Zeromus1 (talk) 12:08, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There are plenty of sources reporting the one SD gap, but it would make no sense to cite sources published decades after the book because obviously the claims in the book cannot be based on such sources. I reworded the sentence to reflect the fact that it was based on what was then the scientific consensus about the size of the gap. The consensus is still the same, but that's neither here nor there.--Victor Chmara (talk) 14:05, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all. The paper I referenced is a meta analysis and covers cognitive ability data spanning 40 years or so. I would suggest that it therefore isn´t anachronistic to this article. I guess there is some ambiguity in the phrase ¨controversial research finding¨ that I used. Perhaps ´provocative´ would have been better. Ah well.

What seems more of an issue is the absence of any link to the race and intelligence page. I don´t know why this was removed. Is there an attempt here to insulate this article from that broader context? Cheers Andrew (talk) 05:56, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm familiar with the Roth et al. meta-analysis. Nowhere in it is it claimed that there's anything controversial or provocative about the size of the black-white gap. On the contrary, they say that the results of their meta-analysis are consistent with several reviews of the question by other researchers. Quoting from the article:

Thorndike (1921, p. 222) graphically illustrated the difference in Black versus White “intellectual ability” by overlaying two roughly normally distributed curves in which the Black mean appears to be slightly more than one standard deviation lower than the White mean. Similar results were observed on the early Army Beta tests (Vernon, 1979).

More recent narrative reviews have echoed similar judgments and increased the precision of what we label the “generally accepted effect size” (GAES) between Whites and Blacks. Based on analysis of both industrial selection data and educational studies (e.g., studies of the SAT), the GAES of approximately one standard deviation (or about 15 IQ points) between Whites and Blacks began to coalesce in the 1960s and 1970s (Dreger & Miller, 1960, 1968; Jensen, 1973; Loehlin, Lindzey, & Spuhler, 1975; Nichols, 1987; Shuey, 1966; Tyler, 1965; Vernon, 1979). By the 1980s, the language of the literature converged on a GAES of 1.0 (Arvey et al., 1994; Herrnstein & Murray, 1994; Neisser et al., 1996; Sackett & Wilk, 1994; Williams & Ceci, 1997). For example, Hunter and Hunter’s review (1984, p. 73) simply states that “Blacks score, on the average, one standard deviation lower than Whites” on the General Aptitude Test Battery (when this instrument was used to measure g).

1 SD is, as Roth et al. write, the "generally accepted effect size", so it can hardly be controversial.

However, the meta-analysis was published twenty years after Jensen's book, so there's no rationale for citing it in this article.--Victor Chmara (talk) 09:45, 12 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Victor Chmara. I don’t think I ever suggested that this reference dealt with the provocative nature of the finding. It simply provided direct support for the fact that the finding exists (which I think would be a valuable addition to the article). I think that rationale is pretty straight forward.

I also think that this little quibble is a distraction from the conspicuous absence of any link to the race and intelligence page. I wonder if this is somehow related to the fact that you, perplexingly, have now started denying the provocative nature of the finding full stop. I think it is worth repeating my question: Is there an attempt here to insulate this article from that broader context? Cheers Andrew (talk) 03:05, 13 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

According to your version, "A controversial research finding is that cognitive ability test scores correlate with race." You cited the Roth et al. meta-analysis in support of this claim. However, Roth et al. do not say that the size of the gap or anything else about it is controversial; on the contrary, they say that 1 SD is the generally accepted effect size. All claims in Wikipedia articles must be verifiable and they must be based on reliable sources. Content that does not meet these requirements, such as your claim of controversiality, is original research and has no place in Wikipedia. The fact that the gap is about 1 SD is already backed up by a reliable source cited in the article (and this source is contemporary to Jensen's book, too).

This article is listed in the category "Race and intelligence controversy", but if you feel there needs to be a direct link to Race and intelligence, go ahead and add it. In that article, there are references to the APA report, Mackintosh's book, and the Brown et al. review, all of which concur with Jensen but are 15-20 years more recent, so there's no need to link to this article. However, a link to this article and more discussion about the book could be useful in History of the race and intelligence controversy. Also, I suggest you familiarize yourself with this guideline before making more groundless accusations.--Victor Chmara (talk) 17:36, 14 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Victor Chmara. The Roth et al. metaanalysis was added as convincing verification of the research finding (I concur with others that the Time magazine reference is a bit weak for this). It was not, as I mentioned, intended as substantiation for the surrounding social hubbub. I think the latter is self-evident, but you would have to look at the broader social context for a moment (instead of only looking at what interests a small group of social researchers). Ironically perhaps, if someone did want to add that point and include a reference, the time magazine article is actually not bad.

With regard to your other point, I don’t think I have thrown around any wild accusations. I was simply trying to figure out why you deleted the wikilink that I inserted. You may have had a very good reason for distancing this article from the race and intelligence page. In the end though, you seem also to be happy with the link being there. And I do think there is value in having the link somewhere in the article body (for the reasons I articulated originally). Hazzah! Consensus. I will put it back in. Cheers Andrew (talk) 12:39, 15 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll look for more sources about this book. See the source list linked here.

I've been (re)reading this book recently, and I admire it as an exceptionally clear book written for popular audiences about many details of IQ testing that are hard to find as clearly explained in other sources. This article well deserves expansion. You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of Intelligence Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in these issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by suggesting new sources through comments on that page. It will be extremely helpful for articles on human intelligence to edit them according to the Wikipedia standards for reliable sources for medicine-related articles, as it is important to get these issues as well verified as possible. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 15:45, 27 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]