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Archive 1Archive 2

Incorrect data in second paragraph

I am removing the very first sentence of the second paragraph of the article and altering the paragraph because of several glaring misinterpretations of data which I will explain here. This sentence misrepresents the overall scientific consensus and the reality of the issue as evidenced by a large number of studies, all of which have data that is broadly in agreement.

This is the sentence I am referring to: "The general figure for heritability of IQ is about 0.5 across multiple studies in varying populations,[7] with estimates as low as 0.47,[2] and is consistent with large meta analyses which show the heritability of human traits to be 0.49.[8]"

The first part of the sentence, "The general figure for heritability of IQ is about 0.5 across multiple studies in varying populations,[7]" conflicts with the majority of studies and data on the subject (as I will show), and quite possibly could be out of date. .5 is considered an absolute lower-bound for the heritability of IQ (see: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21826061 - "fluid-intelligence" is what is tested during IQ tests). But since the citation is a book, I have no way to check their sources to see if this is a misquotation and the book simply mentioned .50 as a lower-bound or not. However, the wording of the line alone is far too matter-of-fact and doesn't give the impression of the actual situation in the field.

The second statement "with estimates as low as 0.47,[2]" links to the study "The heritability of IQ" by Devlin et al... although the page only has the Abstract available (the full study costing $32). I have been unable to find the full study anywhere online for free, and nowhere in the Abstract does it say anything at all about the heritability of IQ being .47.

The third statement about meta analyses is either a blatant attempt at misrepresentation at worst, or just a confusing bit of data, at best.

That line is talking about the average heritability of ALL the traits included in the data of the study, NOT for intelligence or IQ specifically. But by including a .49 heritability for all traits, it attempts to bolster the previous heritability percentages for IQ, as if to say "see, the IQ numbers agree with the overall numbers". However, this is a fallacy, as the heritability of traits included in that meta-study vary wildly - so the average of all traits doesn't imply that IQ's heritability should be similar.

I read the study, however, and instead of having one single heritability percentage, it actually has a large number of datapoints for the heritability of intelligence (which is called "high-level cognitive function" in this study). They list heritability for monozygotic twins (one for male set, one for female set, etc), dizygotic twins (one for both male, one for both female, one for one male/one female, etc). Needless to say there was a lot of data. The highest appeared to be .77 and the lowest appeared to be .60.

More evidence that the original sentence was incorrect and not the general scientific consensus is the meta-study "IQ's of Identical Twins Reared Apart" by A.R. Jensen. In addition to the other data in the study, his conclusion about the upper bound of IQ heritability was this: "The overall intraclass correlation between twins is .824, which may be interpreted as an upper-bound estimate of the heritability of IQ".

Subjective issues - The misleading data is in the first line of the second paragraph. This is the first data that anyone scanning this wiki will find, and many will assume it is the final say on the issue without reading further. Section 2 of this page, "Estimates of the heritability of IQ", contains data that clarifies and basically contradicts the assertion that the heritability of IQ is .50. There is no reason essentially contradictory data should be in the opening section of a wikipedia page.

I think I have made a sufficient case for the removal of that sentence. Thanks for reading.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.81.240.221 (talk) 21:12, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

UPDATE: I've changed the sentence to: "The heritability of IQ has a general upper-bound estimate of .80 and a lower-bound estimate of .50."

I don't yet know how to add citations to a wiki page. But I will add the links here if anyone wants to either help me by telling me how to do it, or do it for me. This is the study where I obtained the upper-bound estimate for heritability based on identical twins reared apart: http://arthurjensen.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/IQ%E2%80%99s-of-Identical-Twins-Reared-Apart-1973-by-Arthur-Robert-Jensen.pdf

And this is the study where I obtained the lower-bound estimate for the heritability of IQ (aka fluid intelligence): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21826061 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.81.240.221 (talk) 21:45, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

User bluescholar has been the source of most of these edits, including deletion of requests for citation on unsourced claims. Bluescholar seems set on deleting any reference to upward bounds of the estimation heritability of IQ, no matter how well sourced the claim. Not sure where to proceed from here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Windkin (talk • contribs) 21:52, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

I agree with ScholarBlue, his edits have not been disruptive, they have been well sourced, and interpret the information published accurately; the only inaccuracy I can find in his contribution history for this article is the claim of multiple meta-analyses (when the citation was of only one). I have checked the publication, Plomin 2004, which makes no reference to 0.85 and the only reference of 0.86 being the correlation of monozygotic IQ (the author does not claim that 0.86 is the heritability of IQ, and no knowledge person in the field would claim that it does). In fact, many edits made by ScholarBlue, in my opinion, have been to remove claims which are unsubstantiated.

Windkin is obviously the IP editor which required a semi-protection status to be applied to this article, given that the reasons for changes are identical between Windkin and the anonymous IP editor; seen here [[1]] and [[2]]. It appears that the lack of knowledge exhibited by Windkin, in his inability to reference sources correctly and in his inaccurate interpretation of publications.

It's obvious to anyone who reads the revision history of this article that Windkin is hellbent on promoting his biased views by misrepresenting scientific data in a way which suits his interests; by neglecting to convey information in the correct context (as pointed out by ScholarBlue when reverting edits made by Windkin). Also, I find the deletion of the heritability of human traits value to be a foolish decision, it appears to me to be an important figure in providing context for IQ heritability, and that no other reputable member has thought it to be inappropriate is in support of my opinion.

I don't appreciate the attempt of Windkin to systematically chip away at ScholarBlue and his reputation. I'd like to request that other reputable editors of this article post their opinion here, so that a consensus can be reached. 2001:630:12:1008:1032:C5E1:EC34:E53 (talk) 22:34, 5 November 2015 (UTC) Sincerely, A PhD candidate at Imperial College London

Dear totally-not-scholarblue's-sock-puppet-honest,

On page 137 of his seminal book Intellegence (2nd ed), author and American psychology professor Emeritus (known for his work on intelligence and personality) Nathan Brody writes, "The correlation for MZ twins reared apart is a direct estimate of the heritablity of IQ."

Regarding your insistence on meandering into the topic of the heritability of all human traits; if it's so important then write it in a new paragraph. It has no place in a paragraph dedicated to a survey of the estimated ranges of the heritability of IQ. As the other wikipedian pointed out above, "it serves only to bolster the previous claims of heritability percentages for IQ", which constitutes a synthesis of published materials, which is against Wikipedia's policies [[3]].

Insomuch as any tarnishment of scholarblue's reputation, being a brand new account, he has no reputation to sully. Much like your own anonymous posting. Windkin (talk • contribs) 21:10, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Dear "PhD candidate at Imperial College London". I am an actual PhD in the United States. But I could say I'm the president, I have no way of proving anything, so shall we just stop the argument from authority and rely on the weight of our arguments? I don't know who "Windkin" is, and I am not that person. My arguments for the change are laid out in what I wrote, very detailed and cited. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.81.240.221 (talk) 22:30, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Also, in addition to what I wrote about... after reading the actual Windkin's reply above, I saw "it serves only to bolster the previous claims of heritability percentages for IQ, which constitutes a synthesis of published materials, which is against Wikipedia's policies". I am not 100% familiar with wikipedia's rules, I simply removed it because it seemed like a purposeful attempt to muddle the information. Another also... in addition to being an actual PhD (in applied psychology), I have worked in the human factors field for the past 10 years. A fairly large part of my early work was in intelligence testing, so this is, almost literally, my specialty. Again though, I have no way of proving this, so I just ask that you read through my post, and weigh my argument on it's actual merit. If I was wrong anywhere, please say so. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.81.240.221 (talk) 22:37, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't know much about wikipedia's rules, and I am not really willing to get into a war of changing and re-changing. But my alterations have been removed, and the offending parts essentially put back. I will give some information here for those of you who are more willing to fight the good fight and get the truth onto wikipedia. There are serious flaws with the citation for "The general figure for heritability of IQ is about 0.5 across multiple studies in varying populations (and ethnic groups),[8]". Firstly, it's a book which cannot be viewed anywhere online. Secondly, much of the data it used is from studies done on children. The heritability of IQ changes dramatically as a person ages from childhood to adulthood, so any studies on the heritability of IQ which were done solely on children should be labeled as such and NOT included in data which could be assumed to be the final adult heritability number, since they will be significantly lower.

Most importantly, the commonly cited ".50 heritability" is simply incorrect and is emphatically NOT the consensus in the field. I know this because I am currently in the field. Again, though, don't take my word for it... You can look at "Mainstream Science on Intelligence", which was a statement paper signed by 52 university professors specializing in intelligence and related fields, and has this to say on the heritability of IQ: "Heritability estimates range from 0.4 to 0.8 ... indicating genetics plays a bigger role than environment in creating IQ differences"

But far better than that is "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns". In 1995, the APA published a report which was meant to be a non-political "authoritative report" on the issue of intelligence. Basically it was to be a statement on the consensus of the field of professional psychology on the issue of intelligence, straight from it's leading members. It was called "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns", and here's what it says on the heritability of IQ:

"Across the ordinary range of environments in modern Western societies, a sizable part of the variation in intelligence test scores is associated with genetic differences among individuals. Quantitative estimates vary from one study to another, because many are based on small or selective samples. If one simply combines all available correlations in a single analysis, the heritability (h 2) works out to about .50 and the between-family variance (c 2) to about .25 (e.g., Chipuer, Rovine, & Plomin, 1990; Loehlin, 1989). These overall figures are misleading, however, because most of the relevant studies have been done with children. We now know that the heritability of IQ changes with age: h 2 goes up and c 2 goes down from infancy to adulthood (McCartney, Harris, & Bernieri, 1990; McGue, Bouchard, Iacono, & Lykken, 1993). In childhood h 2 and c 2 for IQ are of the order of .45 and .35; by late adolescence h 2 is around .75 and c 2 is quite low (zero in some studies). Substantial environmental variance remains, but it primarily reflects within-family rather than between-family differences. These adult parameter estimates are based on a number of independent studies. The correlation between MZ twins reared apart, which directly estimates h2, ranged from .68 to .78 in five studies involving adult samples from Europe and the United States (McGue et al., 1993). The correlation between unrelated children reared together in adoptive families, which directly estimates c2, was approximately zero for adolescents in two adoption studies (Loehlin, Horn, & Willerman, 1989; Scarr & Weinberg, 1978) and. 19 in a third (the Minnesota transracial adoption study: Scarr, Weinberg, & Waldman, 1993). "

Hopefully this will be the final word on this matter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.81.240.221 (talk) 23:32, 8 November 2015 (UTC)


I also altered the line: "IQ heritability increases during early childhood, but it is unclear whether it stabilizes thereafter." to the more accurate: "The heritability of IQ increases with age reaches an asymptote at 18-20 years of age and continues at that level well into adulthood." To reflect the more modern understanding of what is becoming known as "the Wilson Effect". 68.81.240.221 (talk) 00:29, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

I just registered a name so I will be Bzzzing from now on. I am struggling to understand what this line... "In contrast, studies looking at the correlation between the burden of disease and the national IQ of 138 countries report values of about -0.83 (with values ranging between -0.76 and -0.87),[10][11] which is consistent with studies that have found heritability to be lower in families of low socioeconomic status." ...has to do with the heritability of IQ; and how a correlation between disease burden and IQ is consistent with the heritability of IQ being lower in poor families. Bzzzing (talk) 01:48, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi Bzzzing, great work! Since what you just added covers the topic way more succinctly, the following line now seems superfluous and I propose removing it: "Studies of national samples, particularly of Scandinavian and Dutch individuals, have shown that the heritability of IQ in these groups in infancy is as low as 0.2, around 0.4 in middle childhood, and as high as 0.8 in adulthood.[9] However, whether these figures are similar in all ethnic groups and environments requires further investigation". The Scandinavian study the line refers to is already referenced later in the article.

As far as the "burden of disease" line goes, it again seems that whoever wrote it is again doing a synthesis of published materials. Putting two citations after a single assertion is fine, but the way they are reaching conclusions not specifically asserted in either source is not up to Wikipedia's standards. I think removal was appropriate. It may be that the source can be used elsewhere in the article, but I haven't checked its veracity. Windkin (talk) 06:38, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

I took the liberty of rearranging your opening second paragraph sentence. First because we can't call something authoritative without citing a source that says it, so I found a source that called it authoritative. But then with that cite the whole thing started looking more cluttered, so I put your link to the report into a citation. Hope it works for you, if not, by all means revert the change. I promise I won't consider it a war. Windkin (talk) 06:38, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

Hi Windkin, thanks, everything looks very good. I just fixed a small issue with one of the citations. Good first day logged in to wikipedia... I just hope this doesn't become an addiction for me. :) Thanks again, for both the compliment and for your help with the article- Bzzzing (talk) 07:49, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

I really like the simplicity of paragraph two now. It covers everything the old paragraph did, in a more clear way, with better references. The only thing missing is the topic of IQs of different races/nationalities, which lacked references in any case.

I propose a change to paragraph one. It currently gets really convoluted, really quickly. I think some of the more specific facts, like the information about phenylketonuria, would be better under a "disease" heading later in the article.

Proposed change:

Research on heritability of IQ infers from the similarity of IQ in closely related persons the proportion of variance of IQ among individuals in a study population that is associated with genetic variation within that population. This provides a maximum estimate of genetic versus environmental influence for phenotypic variation in IQ in that population. There has been significant controversy in the academic community about the heritability of IQ since research on the issue began in the late nineteenth century.[2] "Heritability", in this sense, "refers to the genetic contribution to variance within a population and in a specific environment".[1] Intelligence in the normal range is a polygenic trait.[3][4] However, certain single gene genetic disorders can severely affect intelligence, with phenylketonuria as an example;[5] with publications which show the capacity of phenylketonuria to produce a reduction of 10 IQ points on average.[6] In contrast, meta analyses have found that environmental factors can result in large reductions in average IQ, such as iodine deficiency which has been shown to produce a reduction of 12.5 IQ points on average.[7]

The struck lines can be moved to their respective sections later in the article.

Regression to the mean

Ctrl+F in the cited work (ISBN 978-1-4292-3719-2) pulls up no discussion of regression to the mean, at all. Neither do either of the two specifically referenced pages(405–6)discuss it. I propose removing the sentence the citation was intended to support, unless someone comes up with a reliable source. Windkin (talk) 09:52, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

User [NukeHarvard] added a citation for the claim that "parents whose IQ is at either extreme are more likely to produce offspring with IQ closer to the mean" The first source provided, Human Molecular Genetics 4th edition, pages 80-81 says no such thing. In fact, it says of the oversimplied model provided:

"In the simple model of Figure 3.25 there is a hidden assumption: that there is random mating. For each class of mothers, the average IQ of their husbands is assumed to be 100. Thus, the average IQ of the children is actually the mid-paren­tal IQ, as common sense would suggest. In the real world, highly intelligent women tend to marry men of above average intelligence (assortative mating). The regression would therefore be less than halfway to the population mean, even if IQ were a purely genetic character."

It goes on to say:

"A second assumption of our simplified model is that there is no dominance."

In light of this, I propose removing the first citation. I suspect the second citation is equally nebulous, but since the source is from 1978 and behind a pay wall, it may take more time. Windkin (talk) 08:01, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Regression towards the mean mentioned as wikipedia cite is a statistical concept relating to measurements. It cannot be applied to a single case (one set of parents and one offspring). Statistical regression toward the mean is not a causal phenomenon.

Here, it means that if you accidentally pick in your measurement two individuals with high IQ (extreme) and then measure that the offspring has high IQ (another extreme). The average IQ of the entire population (not an extreme) would then be lower. Regression towards the mean tells you how the average of a large set would behave: It corrects the effect of extreme values in the measured set.

The regression towards the mean states that in small measurement sets extreme values (IQs) bias the result. It does not imply that two high IQ parents produce offspring with lower IQ. The cite and the term might be wrong here. I would remove the entire sentence or changed it to something like:

The research studying the inheritance of IQ of the offspring from high IQ parents might be compromised as the extreme IQs in small sets bias the results and must be corrected using the concept of regression towards the mean [13][14].

Dv3 (talk) 19:34, 6 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi Dv3, Above, you said: "It does not imply that two high IQ parents produce offspring with lower IQ." But that isn't true. The phenomenon of regression toward the mean does imply that two high IQ parents will produce offspring with an IQ closer to the mean. Here's an excerpt from Jensen and Rushton's "Thirty years of research on race differences in cognitive ability" which explains why:

"Regression toward the mean provides still another method of testing if the group differences are genetic. Regression toward the mean is seen, on average, when individuals with high IQ scores mate and their children show lower scores than their parents. This is because the parents pass on some, but not all, of their genes to their offspring. The converse happens for low IQ parents; they have children with somewhat higher IQs. Although parents pass on a random half of their genes to their offspring, they cannot pass on the particular combinations of genes that cause their own exceptionality. This is analogous to rolling a pair of dice and having them come up two 6's or two 1's. The odds are that on the next roll, you will get some value that is not quite as high (or as low). Physical and psychological traits involving dominant and recessive genes show some regression effect. Genetic theory predicts the magnitude of the regression effect to be smaller the closer the degree of kinship between the individuals being compared (e.g., identical twin; full-sibling or parent–child; half-sibling)."

Bzzzing (talk) 17:30, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Intelligence exclusively maternal

I don't know if anyone can read Portuguese, but some Portuguese Scientists claim that only two or three genes are responsible for intelligence and they all come from the mothers. http://www.cmjornal.xl.pt/nacional/portugal/detalhe/inteligencia-vem-da-mae.html 89.180.101.160 (talk) 06:45, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

These particular Portuguese scientists may well have only two or three genes for intelligence, but that is certainly not true generally.--Victor Chmara (talk) 08:29, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
What a stupid and unhelpful comment, Victor Chmara, please strike it as we do not engage in stupid, childish attacks on scientists who we dont agree with. Nobody actually cares about your opinion. This is the place to help improve this article not engage in attacks on Portuguese scientists. The article does state what you say, anon, re 2 or 3 genes, but the bit abut men choosing (ie sexual selection, mate choice) women 3 times more intelligent than themselves seems dubious. Even more problematic, this source, Correio da Manhã doesnt seem great for science, indeed wikipedia describes it as a tabloid, a judgement I wouldnt disagree with; given the controversial nature of this article we shuld wait for it to appear in a more scientifically prestigious journal. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 15:49, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
Beside the article doesnt mention IQ (QI in Portuguese). Do please try to find other sources for this study but until then we should not include this. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 15:58, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
The claims made by these scientists -- assuming they are correctly described in the source -- are self-evidently absurd and deserve only mockery.--Victor Chmara (talk) 16:48, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
That is your personal and entirely unwanted opinion. This is the page to discuss improvements to the article, not the page where we have to put up with your tedious opinions, please keep them to yourself in the future. ♫ RichardWeiss talk contribs 15:34, 7 December 2015 (UTC)
It's not only my opinion but also that of all reliable sources. If you think that intelligence is determined by two or three genes and inherited maternally, you should not edit this article.--Victor Chmara (talk) 08:46, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

Apparently false claim in 'Caveats' section

The second caveat includes the text:

If the environmental variation encountered by different individuals increases, then the heritability figure would decrease. On the other hand, if everyone had the same environment, then heritability would be 100%.

The first sentence makes a claim that seems obviously true, however given that genotype is not deterministically productive, but random, purely developmental (i.e. non-environmental) factors may affect phenotype, it seems that we should expect hereditability to be close to but not exactly 100% with the same environment. I would be WP:BOLD and change this, but since the article is controversial, I thought I should check on talk before making an unsourced change to the article. — Charles Stewart (talk) 08:42, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

You're right, but if you use an inclusive definition of 'environment', as behavioral genetic research often does, then developmental "noise" is part of the environment and if it, along with other environmental differences, were removed, then heritability would be 100%.
I think the whole section Caveats should be removed and its contents merged with other sections. That section at the beginning frontloads the article with certain notions before the topic is even properly discussed.--Victor Chmara (talk) 09:09, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Biological siblings, raised together as adults

Hi, I think I remember reading a scientific journal paper where it said the correlation between biological siblings raised in the same environment as adults is about 0.24. This is consistent with the parent-child raised apart correlation and the adopted child-parent correlation for adult child. I can't for the life of me find it, can someone confirm this? It's not easy, these correlations are not static, the figure I quoted is the median correlation I believe. 87.198.51.173 (talk) 13:14, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

I found it! Here it is. If it's okay with the bigwig editors I might include it in the article. It clearly implies an adult-biological sibling correlation of 0.24 but doesn't out and out state it. It's clearly implied because it describes the drop in adopted sibling correlation from 0.28 to 0.04 and than says compare this to biological sibling correlation of 0.24. 87.198.51.173 (talk) 13:53, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Heritability figure

I fixed a mis-citation of Plomin & von Stumm (2018). The heritability mentioned in that article is 50%, not 20-50%. The 20-50% figure is the percentage of the heritability for which "genome-wide association studies have successfully identified inherited genome sequence differences" (quote is from abstract of Plomin & von Stumm...see text of paper for 50% heritability figure) Jeremy.wilmer (talk) 14:46, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

When reading the abstract, I have the impression that 20% is about the genes, with 50% the heritability, so I agree. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 15:57, 19 January 2018 (UTC)
I have found a general problem with Plomin. I agree he 'says' 50%, but this figure comes from his own book and from another of his own papers. I did not download the book, but the other of his own references he cites estimates 80%. Plomin gets the 80% figure from another researcher which ACTUALLY said 86%. So Plomin is doing something strange with his numbers: 86% become 80% became 50% which is now falsely interpreted as 20%. How did we get from 86% down to 20%???? There is an acronym for this type of number fudging: L.Y.I.N.G. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulsheer (talk • contribs) 20:50, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Consolidating Estimates

In the article, there are many citations to the adult heritability estimate (77% etc.) but many of these papers are old and many do not actually calculate heritability estimates but instead cite other papers. There needs to be a table of source research that lists adult estimates as a percentage as well as their dates of publication; and that table should EXCLUDE papers that merely cite other papers. There are probably not more than 10 of these.

The reason the article needs to track down the source research is because researchers seem to misquote the actual conclusion figure of an original study. For instance an original analysis might publish a statistical result of 86% heritable, but this gets cited as a lower figure for "unknown reasons".

A comprehensive table would bring honesty to the discussion.

Please comment if you disagree. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulsheer (talk • contribs) 21:04, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Moore Reference on the The heritability fallacy

The Moore reference on heritability "The heritability fallacy", David S. Moore and David Shenk:

According to Moore, "heritable" includes the combination of factors of genes and other factors. However, considering that twin studies involve twins separated at birth, Moore fails to define what other factors exactly he could be talking about, except to imply that they are numerous and significant.

He hints at his idea with "These resources range from cytoplasmic factors in the egg to the language spoken in the home", without explicitly listing all of the possible factors. But of course a child separated from his parents at birth could not have "home language" as environmental factor. The Prenatal environment also has genetics as a factor since the mother is genetically similar to her parents and the prenatal environment has a strong biological component also determined by genetics.

Therefore any conclusion drawn about genetic factors also applies to most environmental factors where the biological parent is responsible for the environment.

Moore's report has been cited only 4 times on google scholar, one of which is Moore himself, and two that are not downloadable or not in English. This indicates the report was poorly received by academia. The third reference (Lerner, DOI: 10.1159/000477995 ) states "In sum, the study of epigenetics illustrates that the genes received at conception (i.e., the genotype) are not a fixed blueprint for development". This is, in essence, an opposite conclusion to Moore. Lerner says genes *are* significant. However learner needs to realize that it is not genes that heritability studies really measure: rather, heritability studies measure "everything that is inherited whatever that may be". Lerner has also been cited only 4 times.

Moore's attempt is rather desperate in my opinion, because even if there are factors that are not explicitly present in a child's Allele, it would *still* be a factor that is determine indirectly through the genes of the parent. An example is a mother that has a mental disorder that causes her to eat poorly during pregnancy. What if this mental disorder has a genetic component? In this case the womb has a damaging environmental factor, but one caused by genes which the child is likely to inherit.

Moore states -

"Because we already know that genetic factors have significant influence on the development of all human traits, measures of heritability are of little value, except in very rare cases."

That statement is quite absurd. If a trait is highly heritable, and interventions to improve that trait fail, then it is very likely that the interventions are a waist of public resources because only medically-impossible genetic alterations will work. A good example is to try improve the nutrition of a group living adjacent to the Netherlands in order to get their average height up to the height of the Dutch (which are the tallest people on earth due to genetics). By saying that height is "heritable and not genetic", according to Moore, it makes sense that the shorter group has a deficiency which can be corrected.

Contrary to what Moore says it is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to quantify the heritable component of a trait because it saves public expenditure correcting problems that are impossible to correct.

Moore's failure to see this importance brings in to questing his objectivity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulsheer (talk • contribs) 23:46, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

This screed does not constitute any kind of compelling reason to exclude this source. The fact remains, heritability = not the same thing as genetic determination, so there is no reason to assume that the extent to which a trait is "heritable" has anything to do with whether/the extent to which is is under genetic control/influence. Moreover, toward the end of the above passage, you commit the well-known fallacy of equating high heritability with high immutability (apparently complete immutability to go by your phrase "impossible to correct"). However, this has never been true (see here for but one of many examples refuting the claim that heritability = immutability; see also Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns, page 86 [4]). IntoThinAir (formerly Everymorning) talk 03:03, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

The hell is going on with citation number 5?

This article, specifically. It's pretty annoying that New Scientist doesn't link to their actual source, but searching Molecular Biology for "Biobank" led me to this paper. Which definitely doesn't list 500 candidate genes that have significant p-value in their study. And also says "In this GWAS, common variants explained 22% of the variance in intelligence." Which seems like a direct refutation of the 80% claim it's supposedly backing as a citation(and which it definitely 100% does not support at all)? I know New Scientist is a secondary source, and we like secondary sources here, but it's a no-context one paragraph article with one citation that doesn't seem to be accurately described. Thoughts? i kan reed (talk) 17:13, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Edit war

This edit warring is out of control. I know I'm semi-protecting the WP:wrong version, but this is out of control, and is growing far too heated. There's a talk page where you can discuss these things. Guettarda (talk) 22:24, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Removed poorly sourced claim

The source for the claim that absence of measurement bias implies common sources of within- and between-group variation is just one primary article. That's WP:UNDUE. To be notable, such an extraordinary claim at least needs a secondary source. Moreover, that primary source appeared in the official journal of the International Society for Intelligence Research, an organization with a strong POV in favor of claims of genetic differences in intelligence between races. My reason for objecting to the use of the word probability is that in a technical context (that is, when research is being discussed) the word has a technical meaning, e.g., that there's a 75% probability of something being true. Using a technical word for a speculative opinion is misleading.

The template at the beginning of the article asks us to avoid making statements that are incomprehensible to a non-expert. Although I'm reasonably well-educated on this topic, I'm certainly a non-expert, and the statement "absence of measurement bias implies common sources of within- and between-group variation" just sounds incomprehensible to me. For example, does that mean that Lewontin's example discussed right above is wrong? Assuming that the measurements of corn were unbiased, would the quoted statement say that there's a genetic component in the difference in average heights between the two batches? NightHeron (talk) 15:12, 7 May 2020 (UTC)


The source is pretty clear. Measurement invariance implies that group differences are due to within group differences. Yes, this would mean Lewontin's example is wrong in terms of IQ differences. Didn't you read it? It's not a very "extraordinary claim" like you claim. Measurement invariance almost always holds in regards to US Blacks and US Whites (see https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pr0.94.1.217-220, http://www.ux1.eiu.edu/~cfglc/Adobe%20pdf/Publications-Papers/Kush%20et%20al.%20(2001).pdf, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0734282917698303 and the study in question). Measurement invariance simply means that the same thing is measured between the groups (no bias exists), and is a pretty basic concept in psychology. To say that you it's "incomprehensible" is ignoring the source, which explains why this is the case.
″In summary, the MI model is a suitable tool to investigate whether within- and betweengroup differences are due to the same factors. The model is likely to be rejected if the two types of differences are due to entirely different factors or if there are additional factors
affecting between-group differences. Testing the hypothesis that only some of the within
factors explain all between differences is straightforward. Tenability of the MI model
provides evidence that measurement bias is absent and that, consequently, within- and
between-group differences are due to factors with the same conceptual interpretation.″
Thus, Lewontin's example is empirically wrong (there was 0 evidence for it anyways). This doesn't mean the gap is due to genetic factors. It means the gap is due to factors that vary within the groups, like nutrition or SES.
You try to frame the journal Intelligence as biased when there are many citations of it in this article, and is one of the most respected journals in the field (#1 journal concerning intelligence). My source has 80 citations, all positive (read https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01640/full), and the authors are not biased at all (Dolan, who is already cited in this article, is responsible for this: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289609000634). Thus, your claims do not stand.
"Probability" in this context isn't a speculative opinion (probability is always speculative, duh). The higher the heritability of IQ, the higher the chance that of between-group heritability in IQ. If you need to understand why, simply read the source provided. As I pointed out, this is exactly what Jensen says (proves), and to say that he says a high heritability of IQ suggests a high between heritability of IQ is misrepresenting him, because he's not saying that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EbolaChan04 (talk • contribs) 16:57, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
First, neither the text you removed nor my comment above says that Jensen says that a high heritability of IQ suggests a high between heritability of IQ. Rather, the text says a high heritability among individuals suggests to him that genetics plays a role in average group differences.
Second, I still don't understand what the claim in the source is. What is "absence of measurement bias implies common sources of within- and between-group variation" supposed to mean? Does it mean that there's at least one source of differences that within- and between-group variation have in common? In that case, the statement is trivial and no one disagrees, since everyone agrees that environment influences both. Or does the claim mean that any source of within-group differences that is found will also be a source of between-group differences (assuming unbiased measurements)? In the latter case, is the source really saying that Lewontin is wrong when he says that the difference between the two batches of corn is entirely environmental? How could that be, given that the corn was separated into two batches at random? NightHeron (talk) 20:40, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Firstly, it doesn't matter if you replace "high between group heritability" with "between group heritability". The point still stands. Jensen never says within group heritability suggests between group heritability. He says that within group heritability increases the likelihood of between group heritability. He explicitly calls a deterministic approach (which you try to attribute to him instead of a probabilistic one) a misrepresentation of his views.
Secondly, the claim of the source is clear. Did you remove the source because you yourself don't understand it? How is that a reason for removal? What happened to "it's biased"? What the source says is that between-group differences are not due to factors that don't vary within groups. To answer your questions, 1.It doesn't say that there's "at least one source of differences that within- and between-group variation have in common", though that wouldn't be trivial like you claim because it would falsify (at least partly) Lewontin's thought experiment. 2.It claims that one of the sources responsible for within-group variance (nutrition, SES, etc) is responsible for between-group differences. This would inherently mean Lewontin's thought experiment is wrong because in it, only between-group variance causes the group differences, not within-group. I quoted the paper where it specifically says this.
First of all, there's no difference between saying within group heritability increases the likelihood of between group heritability and saying "within group heritability suggests between group heritability." At least a non-expert reader sees no difference between "increases the likelihood of" and "suggests." Neither is deterministic. Secondly, there are several reasons for removal of the poorly sourced claim: (i) the logic and meaning are unclear, (ii) the source is the official journal of the ISIR, which is biased in favor of fringe views on race and intelligence, and (iii) it's a primary source (the conclusions of a single study). Thirdly, you say What the source says is that between-group differences are not due to factors that don't vary within groups. Logically, that's a Duh. If I remember undergraduate logic correctly, your formulation is equivalent to saying that the factors causing between-group differences are a subset of the factors causing within-group differences. The mainstream scientific view is that the former are all environmental. Of course trivially the same environmental factors also cause differences between individuals. So the source's statement in your formulation is both trivial and uncontroversial. And it doesn't imply that Lewontin was wrong. Nor does it imply that a cause of within-group differences is likely to also be a cause of between-group differences.
Please stop edit-warring by repeatedly reverting. In the discussion three editors disagree with you, and no one agrees with you about reverting the removal. An SPA such as yourself (see WP:SPA) should be especially careful not to violate Wikipedia policies on edit-warring. NightHeron (talk) 01:10, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
There Is a difference between suggests and likelihood, yet if there isn't why change it? Regarding the source, the logic is clear. I explained it to you clearly 2 times already. (I)Measurement invariance = between-group differences are caused by within-group differences. If you want an in-depth explanation of why, read the paper. (ii) I have already pointed out that 1.Intelligence is already cited many times in this article 2.The authors are not biased 3.Intelligence is the most prestigious journal regarding intelligence. (ii) The source is secondary, and depending of how you look at it also primary. It says measurement invariance (which according to many studies holds between US Blacks and Whites) implies Lewontin is wrong.
Regarding your third point, it's not a "duh". That's the whole point of Lewontin's thought experiment: within-group factors don't cause between-group differences. This is not trivial at all, and it shows you didn't read the paper or understood Lewontin's thought experiment. First you said it an extraordinary claim now you say it's trivial. I don't know what to tell you. It seems you're rooted to removing this source due to your biases, as you keep changing your arguments. You first deleted my revision due to it not being in "plain English", then switched to claims of bias and lack of clarity which do not hold. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EbolaChan04 (talk • contribs) 08:04, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
You misquote me, you misattribute claims to Lewontin, and you give a confused, illogical explanation of what your source's claim is. This discussion isn't accomplishing anything. NightHeron (talk) 12:03, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree with the removal. Citing to individual studies like this is undue. Levivich [dubious – discuss] 17:11, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Paragraph on Rushton and Jensen (2010)

The paragraph on Rushton and Jensen (2010) in #Heritability and socioeconomic status does not appear proportionate to me. Among other things, this is from Bentham Open, which has a poor reputation. The part which starts with The most cited adoption projects... uses sources from both before and after the 2010 one to support this point, which is a strong sign of WP:SYNTH. If there is a secondary source which discusses this source or its conclusions, it could be used for context. Grayfell (talk) 02:20, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Good catch. I'm inclined to be charitable with regards to the acceptability of the source: first, Beall's expose of Bentham Open wasn't published until mid 2009 and the resulting drop in impact factor of the journal was spread over a couple of years; second, the review has been cited by several highly cited papers [5]. The paragraph, though, is not a good summary, for several reasons: one, it talks of R&J critiquing "most" of the listed studies but only name one (beyond this one, I could only find citations of the two articles involving Turkheimer, which is fewer than half of those studies); two, it is written in a way assuming familiarity beyond what the article has assumed to this point, e.g., "Furthermore, the studies typically did not examine if IQ gains due to adoption were on the general intelligence factor (g)" is talking about a distinction that Jensen makes between kinds of IQ test that he claims vary with respect to hereditability, but Jensen's argument is itself controversial; three, the last two sentences are unsourced.
We have a choice: either expand our discussion of the sensitivity of IQ tests to heritability so that we can do the source, or tackle the point in less detail, e.g., "R&J criticise the data gathering in C&D's study, arguing their choice of IQ test is a poor choice as it provides a relatively less hereditable measure." — Charles Stewart (talk) 19:22, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
I agree with all of the above, and would suggest option 2 (cutting the unsupported statements) so as to avoid granting Rushton and Jensen greater space than other voices here. Generalrelative (talk) 19:38, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
That makes the most sense to me, as well. Restraint is called for. Grayfell (talk) 04:11, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
I'll make this change: I think we should cover the additional material, but some of the background is covered in the 'Related measures' section at Spearman's hypothesis; a gesture at that material would suffice. — Charles Stewart (talk) 18:30, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

@Generalrelative: - Just a note about Schönemann: later scholarship doesn't fully support his argument that Jensen's PC1 doesn't do what Jensen claims: cf. the discussion in http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.163.2822&rep=rep1&type=pdf I think discussion of this material needs a broader range of sources, and it is a better fit for the Spearman's hypothesis article. — Charles Stewart (talk) 20:27, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Got it! I'll cut that citation. Generalrelative (talk) 20:31, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Political discussion

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Nerd~enwiki (talk • contribs) 07:22, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Racism

This article is racist pseudoscience. Leaving it up as it is right now is dangerous. It should be deleted or re-edited ASAP. 86.187.234.171 (talk) 12:19, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

The opening sentence is a friggin babble, doesn't make any sense. Replace/remove it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.30.242.184 (talk) 09:01, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Nowhere is race mentioned. The hell are you on about? It's not the encylopedia's fault for conclusions that people make from its pages. Information is information. 2601:645:C000:AE10:D863:FFE1:DD10:51FB (talk) 19:13, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to know how these two sentences mesh together: "The current scientific consensus is that there is no evidence for a genetic component behind IQ differences between racial groups." and "The mean correlation of IQ scores between monozygotic twins was 0.86, between siblings 0.47" That has not been my read of the literature at all. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5754247/ not to mention plenty of scientists agree that there is a significant genetic component to IQ. (Pinker, Dawkins, of course Francis Crick) 108.54.98.54 (talk) 05:15, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

It's right there in the lead: "Although IQ differences between individuals are shown to have a large hereditary component, it does not follow that mean group-level disparities (between-group differences) in IQ necessarily have a genetic basis." For more on why group-level disparities are unlikely to be genetic in origin, see Nisbett et al. which is cited there. For a highly accessible explanation, see this article from The Guardian: [[6]]. For the full discussion that resulted in the idea that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence being ruled WP:FRINGE, see this RfC: Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard/Archive_70#RfC_on_race_and_intelligence. Generalrelative (talk) 06:09, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Claims of "scientific consensus"

My three-month topic ban expired at the end of July, so I'm able to comment here again, and it's about time we resolved this issue. Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Academic_consensus says, "A statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view." I have examined the sources cited for this paragraph, as well as the similar paragraphs in the race and intelligence and Intelligence quotient article, and none of them state that there is a consensus for this view or that most scholars hold it. Nor do any of these sources state outright that there is no evidence for a genetic component; they all use more nuanced wording such as "no direct evidence".

I understand that the outcome of the RFC is widely understood as superseding policies such as WP:V and WP:NOR, but we should discuss whether that's a correct conclusion. I encourage user:Literaturegeek to comment here as well, because he's commented on this particular issue before. 2600:1004:B11E:10F3:5DE:11B4:ED6E:8A1C (talk) 17:25, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

You have already violated WP:CANVASSING twice on this thread, first by going to AmazingCosima's user talkpage to invite them to this discussion, and second by asking Literaturegeek to participate. Such violations are not good practice, especially for someone coming off a topic ban. NightHeron (talk) 23:52, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for opening this discussion @2600:1004:B11E:10F3:5DE:11B4:ED6E:8A1C:. Yes, this was my impression as well and hence why I felt my edit of the claim for "consensus" was very much justified. Obviously, a survey of almost a hundred experts is much higher quality evidence than four sources that don't seem to even support said claim in the first place. Also, I'd add that this topic has been willingly engaged by numerous non-controversial scientists and academics including many of whom disagree with the hereditarian viewpoint themselves, but are willing to engage in what they see as a worthwhile and valuable debate (James Flynn for instance: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047235217300958). AmazingCosima (talk) 18:44, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
I've added another citation which explicitly satisfies WP:RS/AC: "There is an emerging consensus about racial and gender equality in genetic determinants of intelligence; most researchers, including ourselves, agree that genes do not explain between-group differences." [[7]] Note that these authors agree with Flynn that research into race and intelligence is defensible but still emphasize the consensus that group-level differences in test performance do not appear to be genetic in origin. If anyone would like to examine the RfC on this topic from last April, here it is: Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 70#RfC on race and intelligence Generalrelative (talk) 19:27, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
The citation in question doesn't satisfy [[WP:RS/AC] and I think you know this @Generalrelative:. "most researchers, including ourselves, agree that genes do not explain between-group differences" has no citations/references to the surveys of experts that would be necessary to substantiate this claim and as such, is an groundless and unfounded claim on the part of the researcher. I have already provided you with such a survey of experts (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289619301886). You have simply chosen to ignore it because you did not like the findings of it. Perhaps it makes you feel better to tell yourself that most experts are opposed to a partially hereditarian view, but as the most recent data (or at least the most recent I am aware of) has shown, that's simply not the case. The overwhelming majority of intelligence researchers think that genes, to some extent, explain racial gaps in intelligence testing. I look forward to future surveys of intelligence experts that will, of course, provide further refutation of your claims. :) AmazingCosima (talk) 22:45, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
The quote supporting the statement of consensus is from Nature and is obviously RS. It exactly meets the standard in the sentence of WP:RS/AC that was quoted at the beginning of this thread. In your earlier edit summary you seemed to regard an article by Davide Piffer, who refers to African immigrants as "gorillas" and founded the pseudoscientific journal OpenPsych, as RS. You're entitled to have whatever POV you want, but the consensus of Wikipedia editors has already been established, and it doesn't support your POV or that of Davide Piffer.
Rindermann's so-called "survey of experts" has been discussed at length, and there's no need to reopen that discussion. Please see the RfC [8] and related discussions at WP:RSN, WP:AN, and WP:ARCA. NightHeron (talk) 23:20, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
NightHeron is entirely correct. Rindermann et al. (2020) has already been discussed ad nauseam in the RfC. It was not found to be persuasive there so I see no reason it should be taken as persuasive here. Generalrelative (talk) 03:47, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
To the IP: Thank you for the ping. Yes, I enjoyed the RfC and considering and debating the sources, it was quite a stimulating debate. Unfortunately, my interest level in this topic area is very low and thus I have little to no motive to edit this topic area.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 05:59, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Unless I'm missing something, this editor is still topic banned. This was done with relatively wide consensus due to extensive and widespread disruptive behavior. There was no "three month topic ban", instead the block was three months, which is not the same thing. It appears the only reason the block was set at three months was because the IP range is so wide. Again, a WP:BLOCK is not the same as a WP:BAN.
This IP editor refuses to create an account, which is the reason this is so tedious to keep track of. The IP is fully aware of the hassle this shifting IP address causes others, and is actively taking advantage of this confusion.
This editor should not have posted this here, or on either user's talk page, because this falls under their topic ban. The will need to appeal their topic ban before making any relevant edits. This is explained at WP:TBAN. The IP editor has shown enough familiarity with Wikipedia's rules that they should already be aware of all of this. Grayfell (talk) 07:20, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

A critical analysis of the Heritability of IQ that might be useful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBc7qBS1Ujo

This youtube video details some criticisms of IQ Heritability that I don't see mentioned, such as poor controls when comparing groups of people, and a misunderstanding of what heritability means in IQ (the variance attributable to genetics, vs traits attributable to genetics).

DazzleNovak (talk) 23:05, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

The notion of racial IQ is fundamentally bogus. Races don't have IQ's - individuals do. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:06, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
Individuals only meaningfully have IQ scores if we presume that IQ testing is consistent and fair. The video does a good job of explaining, among other things, why that presumption of fairness and consistency should not be taken for granted. While that video is very good, it is not WP:RS. For our purposes it is still useful, because the description has an extensive list of citations. While most of the cited sources are reliable, they are mostly WP:PRIMARY, so using them is tricky. Grayfell (talk) 04:59, 15 October 2020 (UTC)
Then it's even worse - they're confusing IQ with actual intelligence. The only thing an IQ test does is to measure your ability to take an IQ test. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:49, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Some of James Flynn's commentary on Lewontin's analogy in 'Between-group heritability' should be added

James Flynn analyses Lewontin's analogy in Race, IQ, and Jensen, and qualifies it somewhat. I tried to add some Flynn's thoughts but a user (see below) pointed out that I made the mistake of misleadingly giving the impression that Flynn agreed with Jensen. So I think we should try again to add some of Flynn's qualification, while explaining how Flynn's view differs to Jensen. Link to reversion of my previous edit: https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Heritability_of_IQ&oldid=997785487 @Generalrelative: Please can you help rewrite the edit you reverted to make it not misrepresent the source? 80.6.233.101 (talk) 17:42, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for reminding me about this section (which really needed a complete overhaul per e.g. WP:QUOTEFARM). There really was no need to focus on Lewontin's 50-year-old argument here at all, nor Jensen's critique of it, nor Flynn's critique of both. Instead I've imported and edited down a bunch of relevant info from the current version of Race and intelligence. I hope that this makes sense. I would of course be happy to discuss these WP:BOLD changes with you or any other interested party. Best, Generalrelative (talk) 00:35, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

RfC on racial hereditarianism at the R&I talk-page

An RfC at Talk:Race and intelligence revisits the question, considered last year at WP:FTN, of whether or not the theory that a genetic link exists between race and intelligence is a fringe theory. This RfC supercedes the recent RfC on this topic at WP:RSN that was closed as improperly formulated.

Your participation is welcome. Thank you. NightHeron (talk) 23:17, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Removal of citing David Reich?

I added a short mention about how traits influenced by genetics like cognition are expected to vary across populations, citing Harvard professor of population genetics David Reich in New York Times. Nowhere was race mentioned - simply populations. User:Generalrelative mentioned that this view is held only by minority of population geneticists, and pointed me to a RfC about race and intelligence, where Reich was discussed. The discussion links to a Buzzfeed article signed by 67 scientists that criticize Reichs article. However, there is no criticism towards the claim that traits influenced by genetics are likely to vary across populations. In fact, the critisim points out that we would probably find genetic differences between populations even if we would decide to define them based on rather mundane social factors, such as the sport clubs they support. It seems the criticism is not towards the claim that populations differ in heritable traits, but rather how we choose to split people into different populations.

So on what basis is Reichs claim that "and all traits influenced by genetics, including cognition, are expected to differ across populations" a "minority view"?

2A00:23C7:EE82:7701:1906:630D:E828:D194 (talk) 14:48, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

Here's a rather straightforward explanation: [9].
Note also that any discussion of Reich's views on the matter would need to consider the follow-up piece in which he conceded that any differences between populations would inevitably be very modest, indeed far smaller than those among individuals, and that we do not yet have any idea about what the differences are. [10] Generalrelative (talk) 16:11, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
While Kevin Mitchells article is interesting, I am not sure how it proves that Reichs views are fringe? While these metrics are imperfect, Reich has over 10 times more citations and has published many more articles in much more prestigious journals than Mitchell. How do we decide that Mitchells views are mainstream and Reichs are fringe? The RfC is touching upon racial differences, not population differences.
2A00:23C7:EE82:7701:1906:630D:E828:D194 (talk) 16:30, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
There is an important difference between minority and fringe. Reich's actual work is solid gold, but that doesn't mean that his more speculative views are widely shared –– nor that they have encyclopedic value in the context of this article. Generalrelative (talk) 16:38, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
Btw Mitchell's article is just a particularly accessible and direct example. Here's another piece you might find informative: [11]. Generalrelative (talk) 16:43, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
I enjoyed reading the article, but again there is nothing indicating that Reichs view are fringe and his critics represent the majority. In fact, Reich seems to be a more prestigious population geneticist (at least by number of citations and articles published in prestigious journals) than any of the authors of the articles or researchers cited in the Wiki article itself, so at least convincing case could be made that in fact his critics hold a fringe view.
I am not arguing about the merits of Reichs claims (doubt neither of us have the expertise to evaluate them), but rather your assertion that these claims are fringe and only held by a minority. What is the evidence that his views are held only be a minority? Not an article showing that there is criticism towards his claim, but that this criticism is shared by majority in the field?
2A00:23C7:EE82:7701:1906:630D:E828:D194 (talk) 17:06, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
Again, I have not asserted that his claims are fringe. Please see WP:FRINGE for more details on that guideline. And aside from the question of whether Reich's speculative views are widely shared, they are quite obviously speculative, which is why you will not find them in any of his many peer-reviewed studies. That's another important reason why they do not have any obvious encyclopedic value in the context of this article. And why we certainly cannot use them as a basis for stating in Wikivoice what "is expected". Generalrelative (talk) 17:51, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
He is not speculating - he is saying we "we should expect", that is not how a scientist expresses a view that is speculative. It seems that we can now both agree that his claim is not fringe, which I thought was the cited reason for removing it?
2A00:23C7:EE82:7701:CCBA:1BC:2A3D:90D4 (talk) 18:09, 16 November 2021 (UTC)
I am tired of repeating myself. Please go reread my edit summary and comments above. I'm going to stop responding to you now but my silence should not be taken as tacit support for this content. You will need to establish a consensus for inclusion by persuading others before you can re-add. Generalrelative (talk) 18:39, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

On Consensus About Heritability of IQ

Please don't resurrect 6 month old discussions. Start a new thread if you want to renew a topic. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 17:23, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

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

The article claims that there is a "consensus" about genetics not playing a role in racial differences in IQ, however, none of the sources cited claim that there is a consensus that this is the case. In fact, numerous reliable surveys and sources who that this NOT the case. Rindermann, Becker, and Coyle (2020) emailed 1237 researchers who had either published intelligence related work in an academic journal or who were a member of an organization related to the study of individual differences in intelligence and found that 49% of the Black-White IQ gap was caused be genes. Only 16% of these experts believed that none of the Black-White IQ gap was due to genes, and only 6% believed that the gap was entirely due to genes.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289619301886

Similarly, Snyderman et al. 1987 emailed 1,020 academics in this literature, and the results were as such: 45% of respondents said the Black-White IQ gap was due to genes and the environment, 24% said there wasn’t enough data to say, 17% didn’t respond, 15% said it was due only to the environment, and 1% said that it was due entirely to genes.

http://lepo.it.da.ut.ee/~spihlap/snyderman@rothman.pdf

It is usually advised not to use primary sources, but not a single source that is either cited in the article or that exists claims that there is a "consensus" that the black-white IQ gap is only due to the environment. This is why I am giving primary sources as evidence to show that what is claimed in this article is not the case. In general, Wikipedia should work to establish reliable and neutral sources for claims, as opposed to simply stuffing poor ones that agree with a given narrative. Dashoopa (talk) 00:11, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

P.S. Furthermore, there are several secondary sources as well that claim that there is not a consensus. Here is a massive literature review on heritability of racial differences in IQ which found that the group differences are between 50 to 80% heritable.

https://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOPSYJ/TOPSYJ-3-9.pdf

Hi Dashoopa, you have stumbled onto one of the most contentious issues on Wikipedia over the course of the past several years. Please see at least the last six months of discussion at Talk:Race and intelligence (don't forget the archives!), this RfC last year with ~50 participants, and right now this pending decision at AE. If you still have questions after reading all this I'd be happy to answer. But in short, the scientific consensus is quite clear: it is as stated in the article. And it will not be relitigated here. Generalrelative (talk) 00:23, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
Generalrelative Yes, I have read all of those: trust me, I'm not a newcomer to either Wikipedia or any of these topics. I already demonstrated through multiple reliable surveys of high sample sizes and secondary sources of massive literature reviews which show that there is not a consensus that it is entirely explained by environment, and most say that it is both. This is an indisputable fact, and not a single reliable source says otherwise. I understand that a lot of people come on Wikipedia in order to push their political agenda which doesn't usually have any form of scientific backing, but we have to be committed to WP:NPOV and WP:RS. There is only one consensus on this topic and it is that there is no consensus on this topic, and any honest expert will attest to this. Dashoopa (talk) 00:36, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
As I said, this will not be relitigated here. Generalrelative (talk) 00:40, 1 May 2021 (UTC)
Wow this and the RfC mentioned are an amazing encapsulation of science/reason getting consumed by politics/ideology in the 21st century. I hope the archival format captures the first decade or so of Wikipedia, so people know it doesn't have to be this way. FWIW, I completely agree with Dashoopa. This article should not proclaim "consensus" on "one of the most contentious issues on Wikipedia." Just scrolling through the RfC I see an enormity of lively debate and disagreement, both sides citing a litany of published evidence... And what is the central claim here? That IQ is hereditary, race is hereditary, but genetics plays NO role in any measurable IQ difference between races? It's quite a claim in its own right, but claiming there's consensus in the scientific community is absurd. If everyone who disagrees that such a "consensus" exists has some sort of semantic misunderstanding (the basis for disputing Dashoopa's cited survey), maybe the article should just say "many experts believe" instead of "consensus." The only reason why you'd want to keep "consensus" is to foreclose thought/discussion on the matter. 128.12.88.50 (talk) 11:35, 22 November 2021 (UTC)
Your comment is not constructive. The word "consensus" in the lead is supported by lengthy earlier discussions and two RfCs, one last year and one this year. There is no reason to relitigate this. NightHeron (talk) 10:25, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
@Dashoopa:- Generalrelative is right to insist that this question is not relitigated: the only way to overturn the RfC is with a successor RfC and that would be a waste of time. The point about Rindermann, Becker, and Coyle's survey deserves a response, however, for the sake of promoting understanding among interested editors. The unfortunate fact is that most "intelligence" researchers are, like most empirical scientists, deficient in their understanding of statistics. The RBC survey asked respondents to estimate the proportion of the sources of U.S. black-white differences in IQ that were due to genes as opposed to all factors. Note the term "due to": this is not a question of heritability, which is a statistically precise but hugely misunderstood observable, but of causality, which is only meaningful in terms of a causal model relating genotype to phenotype; with respect to human intelligence, nobody has credible instances of such models. The question can only be answered by (i) not giving a number (which is what I would have done and which the 15% of respondents who gave any answers to the survey did - RBC also said that many polled scientists responded to say they would not complete the survey because they didn't like the questions - the 15% were simply ignored in the 49% result of RBC you cited); (ii) basing the answer on "fantasy psychology", guessing properties of a imaginary model a projected future of the psychology discipline might produce, (iii) basing the answer on a model that does not work, or (iv) giving a number not informed by the idea of a causal model at all. The 85% of the respondents who answered this question appear to have gone with (ii) to (iv), which I don't regard as scientific answers, but it was a bad question and I could understand providing an answer based on a sense of politeness that prefers to give substantive answers even where good answers are not possible.
If you don't understand why causal questions need to be interpreted relative to a causal model before these you can hope to give a coherent answer to this question, then, like many intelligence researchers, then you don't currently have the understanding needed to interpret this aspect of RBC's survey. If you want to understand, I can help. — Charles Stewart (talk) 06:39, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Junheesin. Peer reviewers: Junheesin.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 23:23, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Much of the article is poorly sourced

Reviewing the article, it appears that large chunks of the content are attributable to User:Miradre, an editor that was topic banned from articles of this nature. As one might expect, this has left the article in a very poor state with respect to sourcing. I would attempt to improve the situation, but I suspect that some strange sort of false consensus has fallen over the content from the topic banned editor. 99.152.115.208 (talk) 01:20, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Despite the fact that I've found you difficult to work with (see above), I encourage you to continue to make WP:BOLD changes –– and for the record, I approve of much of what you've just done, e.g. [12]. If we have to bring things back here to discuss, I'll ask you to respect process and policy (in particular not violating WP:LOCALCON with respect to how we define heritability), and actually read the comments of others. If you can do that, we can make progress. And if need be, I'll be happy to post at WP:FT/N myself, but for now I'd like to see what you can come up with in terms of improved sourcing. Generalrelative (talk) 01:36, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Incorrect sourcing in the lede

I made some edits to correct the lede to the cited source, which clearly illuminates that heritability measures variance of both environment and genetics, and to the extent that it isolates for genetics, it only does so under when the population is restricted to a specific environment. It's possible that the cited source is not the the best source to use for the lede, but if we are going to use that source, we should correct the lede to represent what the source says. 99.152.115.208 (talk) 05:28, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

The language of the lead could certainly be clarified, but unfortunately the suggested language you added only made it less clear (indeed, it appeared to get the role of environment precisely backwards). One might productively look to the lead of our main article Heritability for guidance, but to say anything about the heritability of IQ without running into WP:OR issues, we will need sources that specifically address heritability in the context of IQ. For reference, here is the opening paragraph of Heritability:

Heritability is a statistic used in the fields of breeding and genetics that estimates the degree of variation in a phenotypic trait in a population that is due to genetic variation between individuals in that population.[1] The concept of heritability can be expressed in the form of the following question: "What is the proportion of the variation in a given trait within a population that is not explained by the environment or random chance?"[2]

I'm not suggesting that the IP editor does not understand this, but rather that their writing unfortunately lent itself to a misreading that they evidently did not intend. Generalrelative (talk) 05:51, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
The cited source is clear that heritability does not measure genetic variance, but environmental *and* genetic variance.
The way the lede is currently written incorrectly suggests that heritability estimates only the genetic component of variation. The source is likewise clear that the genetic variance can only be estimated when the environment is controlled for.
Now, it may be that this source is not the correct source for the lede. But if we are going to use this source, it is important to quote it correctly, and avoid the WP:OR of stripping the relevant aspects of how heritability is impacted by environmental variance. 99.152.115.208 (talk) 06:16, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, it seems there's some inconsistency here. Indeed, the cited source is quite sour on the idea that the heritability of IQ is even a useful concept:

Under these circumstances, one might imagine that the ‘useless quantity’ of heritability would have been discarded. Even if not repudiated, as in chemistry phlogiston was replaced by oxygen, the laborious calculation of heritability estimates should at least have been given an honourable pension. In many areas of genetic research this is indeed the case. However, in one field in particular, that of psychometry and ‘behaviour’, researchers cling to the concept as if afraid of letting go the hand of the nurse. . . . Heritability estimates become a way of applying a useless quantity to a socially constructed phenotype and thus apparently scientizing it—a clear-cut case of Garbage In, Garbage Out.

I'd suggest that this should be discussed or even quoted at length, but we should find a better source to cite for our basic definition of heritability as applied to IQ. Generalrelative (talk) 06:29, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
PS: Hopefully this edit alleviates your concern, at least the one about the source being misrepresented. We could still use a solid source that defines heritability in the context of IQ, but absent that I'd say it's best simply to stick to a consistent definition of heritability. Generalrelative (talk) 06:37, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
Given that the lede is still doing some "creative editing" of the cited source, I can't say it looks any better. At a computational level, there is nothing about heritability that separates variance due to environment or genetics, which is what the cited source presents. Stripping that information from the source is some fairly stark original research. 99.152.115.208 (talk) 07:52, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
I'm not even sure what you're referring to here. We no longer cite that source for our definition of heritability. We're just giving the standard textbook definition, per e.g. Nature Education. Generalrelative (talk) 16:39, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
Rose is still cited in conjunction with Delvin. I'll just observe that "giving the standard textbook definition" without citing the textbook is poor form. It's not clear to me why you think the Rose source is worth citing, but not worth incorporating. Rose is a good source, and does have the definition correct. 99.152.115.208 (talk) 18:59, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
Re-read my comment above please. I do think that Rose is worth incorporating –– as a prominent critique of the idea that heritability of IQ is a scientifically valid concept. It seems to me a rather compelling argument actually. We should summarize and possibly quote it within the article body first, and then if what's there appears prominent enough we can incorporate it into the lead. The citations for the textbook definition of heritability are given in the lead section of Heritability and in this article (now) in the first paragraph of the "Heritability and caveats" section. Per WP:LEADCITE this is all entirely normal. If you would like to argue that Wkipedia's consensus understanding of what heritability means is incorrect, the place to have that conversation would be on the Heritability talk page rather than here. Cheers, Generalrelative (talk) 19:41, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
I'm sorry, you can't refer to citations in another article to support content in this article. That's not how WP:RS works. Referring to "Wikipedia's consensus" is also a bit strange, unless there is a specific policy or enforcement page you are referring to. 99.152.115.208 (talk) 22:44, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
Those citations are also in this article (in the first paragraph of the "Heritability and caveats" section). Did you miss that? WP:LEADCITE tells us that if something is cited in the article body it is not necessary to cite it in the lead. And yes, the definition of heritability that's been present on the main article Heritability should be understood to have WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS. We cannot create a new definition here, per WP:LOCALCON. Rather, if you disagree with the established definition, you need to state your case at the main article. If you have additional concerns and would like to bring in a wider group of science-literate editors, I'd suggest posting at WP:FT/N –– but in terms of process they will tell you the same thing that I'm telling you now. Generalrelative (talk) 22:59, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
Are you referring to Delvin or Rose? Those are the two citation attached to the first two sentences of the lede. I guessing it's not Rose, since that's the reference which was just discarded. If you are referring to Delvin, that is not a textbook. Instead of incorrectly citing policy ("... consensus until it is disputed or reverted") it would help if you could just surface the textbook you are referring to. 99.152.115.208 (talk) 00:07, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
No. The two textbook sources are cited in the first paragraph of the "Heritability and caveats" section. That's now the third time I've told you this very simple piece of information. Click the "Refs" tab below. Those are the cited sources. Or you could, you know, actually look at the article. In any case, you've exhausted my patience and any engagement I was required to extend to you. Good luck out there. Generalrelative (talk) 00:18, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
Then I'll admit to being baffled as to why they are not cited, and instead you prefer the cites to Delvin and Rose. When I get a chance I'll pull the cites to the lede to avoid this kind of confusion going forward. 99.152.115.208 (talk) 00:39, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
They are cited. They are not cited in the lead sentence because that sentence doesn't just define heritability but rather the heritability of IQ, so including citations there might give the impression that the cited sources support the entire content of the sentence, which they do not. This is actually entirely normal for leads, especially opening sentences, which need to summarize various aspects the article into coherent statements. That's why, per WP:LEADCITE, we don't need to cite claims in the lead when they are cited in the article body. Generalrelative (talk) 01:41, 30 August 2022 (UTC)
Refs
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

References

  1. ^ Wray N, Visscher P (2008). "Estimating Trait Heritability". Nature Education. 1 (1): 29. Archived from the original on 2 August 2015. Retrieved 24 July 2015.
  2. ^ Gazzaniga MS, Heatherton TF, Halpern DF (February 2015). Psychological science (5th ed.). New York. ISBN 978-0-393-26313-8. OCLC 908409996.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

Panizzon paper

Panizzon in one of the largest modern twin IQ studies establishes the heredity of IQ at 86%. General Relative deletes this citation repeatedly with no rationale and therefore should be permanently banned from this article. He is edit warring continuously by deleting real science citations with no rationale.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4002017/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:5D60:7920:5091:5113:979B:E636 (talk) 00:15, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Per WP:SECONDARY, Wikipedia is based on secondary sources wherever possible, and these are always preferred to WP:PRIMARY ones. (We can leave aside for now concerns about the reliability of the journal Intelligence when it deals with the topic of genetics.) I've replaced the Plomin study with a secondary source confirming the 80% number based on a survey of various primary studies. You are of course welcome to provide a rationale for adding an additional primary study, but as of yet you have not done so. If you'd like to report me for what you perceive to be behavioral problems, this is not the place to do that. Generalrelative (talk) 00:26, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
Also: not a huge deal but I'm not a "he". They/them pronouns for me please. Generalrelative (talk) 00:29, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
By the way, you can use a primary source. It's very common. Just make sure not to interpret it; simply plainly state the facts. BooleanQuackery (talk) 02:44, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
I also suggest that you self-revert since you are now past the 3RR red line per WP:EW. Generalrelative (talk) 00:31, 20 December 2021 (UTC)
Hi Mr. 2600, I read the source you listed. It's reliable and has a good methodology. I would support its inclusion, with the caveat that g is not the same as IQ. g will likely be slightly more heritable than IQ is, because IQ is a very good but imperfect measure of g. BooleanQuackery (talk) 02:29, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
I also support the inclusion of study. We have something of a consensus then, don't we, @BooleanQuackery? Thespearthrower (talk) 18:16, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
No, you don't have a consensus to include a primary study reported in a highly unreliable journal. NightHeron (talk) 18:43, 23 September 2022 (UTC)

There is now a consensus. Three separate users advocate for the inclusion of a peer-reviewed study. NightHeron and Generalrelative are known to communicate. It would be safe to add the article. It probably appears in a review or other paper so someone can probably cite the figure as a secondary source. Let's include both low and high heritability estimates if the papers have good methodology. BooleanQuackery (talk) 00:09, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

I've been known to communicate with you too, BooleanQuackery. There is most certainly no consensus for inclusion here. Generalrelative (talk) 05:38, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
There is not a consensus to include a primary study from a questionable journal. Also, quit digging up months-old posts and resurrecting them. If you have a coherent argument to make, create a new section rather than digging up an old one. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:13, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
There is no consensus for this. Treating consensus as a popular vote is misguided, at best, and dragging this out over a full year is bordering on disruptive. Grayfell (talk) 23:00, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

I accidentally stumbled across a good peer-reviewed paper that uses the 86% figure while doing something unrelated yesterday. Therefore I'll probably include a secondary source mentioning the 86% figure eventually but I will read more previous discussions first to see if there's a reason why it shouldn't be be added. BooleanQuackery (talk) 21:16, 15 December 2022 (UTC) Striking WP:BLOCKEVASION. Generalrelative (talk) 19:24, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

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