User talk:Captain Occam/Archive 1

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:

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

Orphaned non-free image (File:Occamlogo.png)

⚠

Thanks for uploading File:Occamlogo.png. The image description page currently specifies that the image is non-free and may only be used on Wikipedia under a claim of fair use. However, the image is currently orphaned, meaning that it is not used in any articles on Wikipedia. If the image was previously in an article, please go to the article and see why it was removed. You may add it back if you think that that will be useful. However, please note that images for which a replacement could be created are not acceptable for use on Wikipedia (see our policy for non-free media).

If you have uploaded other unlicensed media, please check whether they're used in any articles or not. You can find a list of "file" pages you have edited by clicking on the "my contributions" link (it is located at the very top of any Wikipedia page when you are logged in), and then selecting "File" from the dropdown box. Note that any non-free images not used in any articles will be deleted after seven days, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. Thank you. Damiens.rf 14:27, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]