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by LawTalkingGuy 1351 days ago
The talk page, and Quillette article, are proof that Wiki entries needs to contain the discredited sources too, and the properly sourced criticisms of them of course, rather than simply deleting them.

Wiki rules are tools to build better content, not absolutes we must die on. If 90% of readers of an entry find it lacking or untrustworthy because it doesn't mention well-known studies or even fields of endeavor then it's not a useful article.

> despite what a number of skull-measuring right-wingers would like you to believe

Do you believe that acceptance of the theory that genes impact IQ is split along communist/non-communist lines? That communists are less likely than average to believe this? These broad statements and the identities around them are the partisanship behind much of the politically-motivated editing going on in Wiki now.

1 comments

Quillette articles are rarely proof of more than the ability of deranged conservatives to get nonsense published.

>Do you believe that acceptance of the theory that genes impact IQ is split along communist/non-communist lines?

Maybe. I think the idea that genes impact IQ and that IQ actually usefully measures anything - certainly anything that could be described as 'intelligence' - is probably split that way.

The Quillette article was cited as tautological proof of how "those people" feel about the wiki entry. They don't find it convincing and are explaining the citations they feel it lacks...

The point of Wiki is to educate and that means reaching the uneducated who are going to have those nasty uninformed opinions. Even if I agreed with your assessments of the people involved I'd want to improve them, not crap on them for where they are. If Wiki is only for those who already believe the right things, why even have Wiki?

> split along communist/non-communist lines?

Why would a support for a scientific concept be split across groups by economic philosophy? Is there anything inherently capitalist or communist about these ideas or are these ideas conflated with identities?

> [IQ being] anything that could be described as 'intelligence'

That it's related at all, or that it's a perfect match? Because of course we'll always have subjective views of the definition of intelligence and no one test will satisfy everyone.

> the idea that genes impact IQ and that IQ actually usefully measures anything

Unlike intelligence, IQ is definable, stable, and correlates highly to job performance. (Of course, because the tests resemble many work-skill tasks...)

Why would IQ be the only trait that isn't genetic at all?

I have no desire to see any given racial group maligned, even with "correct" data, but I feel the discussion about genetic traits is limited for fear of this, and that this censoring falls exactly along the lines of the USA's post-slavery racial lines. To me this suggests that this is a you (the USA) problem, not an us (the rest of the anglo-sphere) problem, and that it should be treated with racial sensitivity training and honesty, not with demonization and censorship and quashing research.