Talk:Gerhard Meisenberg

{{db-attack}}

Posted by a sockpuppet of user:Gmeisenberg
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Wikipedia defines an attack page as "a page, in any namespace, that primarily exists to disparage or threaten its subject." [WP:ATTACK] This is the case here. The page was created with the phrase "...who is the editor-in-chief of Mankind Quarterly, a journal which publishes content endorsing scientific racism and eugenics." The statement that the person is editor of the Mankind Quarterly is factually correct, but the claim that the journal endorses "scientific racism and eugenics" is (1) not verifiable because these terms have no generally accepted meanings. They represent not even specific opinions and are rarely used for any other purpose than as slurs to slander the people to whom they are attached. (2) The claim is unfounded because the journal states on its website that "the often contradictory views that are represented in the Mankind Quarterly are those of the individual authors, not those of the journal’s publishers or editors." (www.mankindquarterly.org/about) Serious academic journals must tolerate viewpoint diversity and publish alternative theories that are those of the individual authors. (3) Inspection of articles from the journal that are publicly available on Researchgate, Google Scholar (www.scholar.google.com) and other sources shows no unusual density of articles that can be construed as "endorsing scientific racism and eugenics" in whatever meaning. These easily accessible sources rather show that some articles propose biological or genetic explanations for their findings while others propose social or environmental ones. The balance between these is in no way unusual. (4) The author of the page claims that the journal "publishes content endorsing scientific racism and eugenics" (present tense) but supports this with old references which date from about the time of the Bell Curve Wars. These sources can only be based on events that happened in a rather distant past, not the recent past or the present, even if they have any basis in fact. (5) The cited references are antihereditarian polemics that are not scholarly but rhetorical in nature and do not provide specific evidence for their lurid claims. A polemic is not meant to present facts, but to express or incite hate. Perusal of these references by the author of this bio confirms that this is his intent. He simply repeats slurs that had been published in these sources. Even if these references were recent, they would therefore not provide substantive support for the claim made by the author. This bio was created with malicious intent, is slanderous, and provides no useful information. It should therefore be removed immediately. Additional: 1. On https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_light it says: "False light is a tort concerning privacy that is similar to the tort of defamation. The privacy laws of the United States include a non-public person's right to protection from publicity which puts the person in a false light to the public." The stated definition is fulfilled in this case. 2. Vandalism is defined by Wikipedia as "editing (or other behaviour) deliberately intended to obstruct or defeat the project's purpose, which is to create a free encyclopedia, in a variety of languages, presenting the sum of human knowledge". This editor uses Wikipedia as a soapbox for his hatreful rhetoric, and obstructs Wikipedia by presenting slurs as if they were facts.Anamika1988 (talk) 16:28, 2 August 2018 (UTC) Anamika1988, if you genuinely believe this article to be an attack page, then please place the db-attack template on the article itself, not on its talk page (i.e. this page). I have added nowiki tags around the template in this section header so this page won't be wrongly tagged in the meantime. IntoThinAir (formerly Everymorning) talk 16:31, 2 August 2018 (UTC) Apparently, he is the editor-in-chief of an academic journal, which makes him a notable researcher according to the guidelines. As for the article as it stands, there is obvious undue weight on controversy. In order to avoid speedy deletion, this needs to be corrected. Narssarssuaq (talk) 12:16, 17 August 2018 (UTC) I did some source checking for this article. Reference 6 (Nature comment): The important excerpt from the commentary in this source is: “By not investigating the race-intelligence link, we not only perpetuate ignorance and the prejudice that thrives on ignorance. We also deprive ourselves of the possibility to tackle the existing inequalities, first by a judicious development policy and – should genetic differences indeed be important – by eventually changing the allele frequencies of the offending genes. We should not get stuck in the twentieth-century assumption that environments are changeable but genes are not. This will no longer be the case in the twenty-first century.” This does indeed suggest a preference for racial equality, but speaking of “advocacy” is perhaps a bit strong. I would read it as simply meaning: “With twenty-first century technology, it’s our choice.” Instead of this Wired piece, we could also cite the complete commentary: https://www.nature.com/articles/458145a. Reference 3: Here Angela Saini is quoted as saying that Meisenberg's views on race and intelligence are "unsupported by evidence, generally receive little to no attention from within the everyday scientific community." It does not say what these views are, but this is clearly stated in Reference 6 above: “By not investigating the race-intelligence link, we … perpetuate ignorance and the prejudice that thrives on ignorance.” This implies the expectation that the research will not show much difference. Because he also writes what can be done if there are "offending genes", the conclusion is that he is agnostic about the results of the research. If Saini is accepted as a source, then this evidence should be added. References 2,3,4,5: These are about the Mankind Quarterly. Sources 2 and 3 (van der Merwe and Saini) contain no useful information about the journal except stating that it is published by Richard Lynn (van der Merwe) or that it is racist (Saini). These authors are journalists and political activists in southern England who have recently been working together to attack scientists, politicians and intellectuals they don’t like. Reference 4 is written by a left-wing Wikipedia troll who rails against the activities of right-wing Wikipedia trolls, and Reference 5 is an old polemic from the Bell Curve wars. Again, these sources simply claim that the Mankind Quarterly is racist without providing any evidence. These are non-scholarly, politically activist sources, all from the same (anti)intellectual fringe. They are not “reliable sources” about anything but themselves by Wikipedia’s usual standards. What should be done here is to follow standard practice and refer the reader to the journal website (www.mankindquarterly.org). This has all the pertinent information, including abstracts of the published articles. Also, this whole article mentions nothing but race and racism, although Meisenberg seems to have written very little about the subject other than the commentary in Reference 6. Wasn’t something like a biochemistry textbook mentioned in an earlier version of this article? What happened to that? Yucahu (talk) 16:09, 22 September 2018 (UTC) "Important" according to who? Wikipedia relies on independent sources, not editorial opinion about primary sources. It is not up to you to decide which parts of a source are important. Your personal opinions about these journalists is also not relevant to Wikipedia. The thrust of reliable, independent sources is that Meisenberg's association with Mankind and involvement in eugenics are significant because of the connection to scientific racism. Since Wikipedia isn't a platform for promotion, it is not acceptable to cherry-pick quotes from this person to imply a position which is not directly supported. If you know of any reliable independent sources about his biology textbook or anything else which isn't already mentioned, please let us know. Grayfell (talk) 20:44, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Attack on Justin Ward

where is the evidence that he is a left wing Wikipedia troll? [[ WP:BLP applies to talk pages. Doug Weller talk 23:45, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Grayfell does not seem to know that a "reliable" source is one that can be traced to a verifiable primary source. A secondary source that presents unverifiable claims is not a reliable source. The Macarthur reference is a reliable source because it references a verifiable primary source (a published Nature commentary). Conveniently, it even quotes from it. This is not the case with the other sources, such as Saini and van der Merwe. They claim things for which they provide no independently verifiable source. They present no evidence whatsoever. Everyone can pull things out of thin air and put them in a student newsletter or an opinion piece for a newspaper. That happens all the time. Without verifiable evidence (in this case, something that Meisenberg has said, written or done), these sources are rubbish. You mention Meisenberg's "involvement in eugenics". What evidence do you have for this? What qualifies as involvement in eugenics? Please explain. And what evidence do you have for cherry-picking? Can you provide quotes that contradict the quote in the Wired article? Or is there only one cherry to pick in the whole garden?

Sorry about the unflattering description of Justin Ward. In his article he complains only about right-wing trolls although trolling by diverse fanatics is a general problem for Wikipedia. Anyway, he mixes up the descriptive with the polemical, which is a red flag. At the very least, he gives his readers the impression of being more than a bit biased. Yucahu (talk) 20:10, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Your definition of "reliable source" is not Wikipedia's definition of reliable source. Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, independent sources. Primary sources should only be used with caution, and we do not triage secondary sources based on how closely they adhere to primary sources... otherwise we would just use primary sources. For Wikipedia's purposes, the "evidence" is the statements presented as factual by reliable outlets with reputations for accuracy and fact checking. Nothing you have presented, or which I have found looking through his work, has led me to doubt any of this.

To restate this once again: There are reliable sources already cited in the article, and if these source don't paint a flattering picture of Meisenberg, that still doesn't make those sources any less reliable. Grayfell (talk) 01:48, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

There are cases where secondary sources and primary sources contradict each other. We call this fake news. Are you saying that Wikipedia is designed to spread fake news? Is this the purpose of Wikipedia? Also, the sources you cite are not independent. In particular, Saini and van der Merwe worked together. According to their pieces, they first went after one Toby Young (whoever that is), then they extended their attack to the scientists of the London Conference when they learned that Toby Young had visited that conference. These two journalists belong to the same action group. They fabricated a story, and put it in two different outlets. Call that independent? Their history shows that these are worldview-defending tribal warriors of sorts. This is a red flag. More to the point, only those secondary sources whose claims can be independently verified are "reliable". Claims in secondary sources that cannot be verified are unreliable, and those that are demonstrably false are either errors or lies. Here we are dealing with allegations that are unsupported by any evidence. To the extent that there is any evidence from primary sources (i.e., facts), they contradict the storyline that moved from Saini and van der Merwe into this Wikipedia bio. Wikipedia allows primary, secondary and tertiary sources (PSTS): "Deciding whether primary, secondary or tertiary sources are appropriate in any given instance is a matter of good editorial judgment and common sense, and should be discussed on article talk pages." In articles about people who are interesting only for what they have published, and this includes scientists in addition to various kinds of intellectuals, good editorial judgment and common sense demand to use mainly their published writings even if these are primary sources. In this case secondary sources are preferable only when primary sources are not available, such as when something has never been published or a manuscript has been lost. In this case we have the worst case imaginable. Here the secondary sources cited are not merely unreliable. We are rather dealing with known culture warriors who have a reputation for going after people whose worldview (in this case, the scientific worldview) they don't share. Yucahu (talk) 13:57, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

They are independent of the topic of the article. They are independent of Meisenberg. What else would the term "independent" mean? Good lord... Your conspiratorial insinuations about their "worldview" is totally unsupported and is not worth discussing further.

Your opinions about mainly using primary sources is fundamentally opposed to common practice and Wikipedia's policies. From Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources: Wikipedia articles should be based mainly on reliable secondary sources, i.e., a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere.; from Wikipedia:Verifiability: Base articles on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. (WP:SOURCES); from Wikipedia:No original research: Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. (WP:PRIMARY, emphasis in original); and many, many more besides.

It is not up to you to decide why these people are "interesting", it is up to reliable, independent sources. It is also not up to you to choose which primary sources are evidence, and which are not. Having glanced at Meisenberg's work, specifically his self-published book, I do not see any contradiction at all, but nobody cares about my original research, and nobody cares about your original research either. Grayfell (talk) 20:27, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Biographical article with no biographical details

Various of my edits have been reverted with comments stating that the edit was either whitewashing or bold editing. I believe both statements to be inaccurate. This article is a biographical. However, it does not contain biographical details about the subject. I have used the same source quoted in the article ("Gerhard Meisenberg". medical.rossu.edu. Retrieved 25 July 2018) to add the missing details.

Evangw29114 (talk) 10:14, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

That is not an independent source. With people associated with fringe ideas, we cannot use essentially autobiographical sources, per WP:FRINGE. Guy (Help!) 20:04, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

In God's Image

While I think you're right that this book was published by a vanity press, JzG, I think we should include it here, because it was reviewed in at least a couple of scholarly journals - one that I cited and also this. We could perhaps say something in the article about the book, based on its reception in these reviews. Cordless Larry (talk) 14:10, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Per WP:PROFRINGE, I am OK with that as long as the reviews are reality-based and not white supremacist / eugenicist sympathetic. Guy (Help!) 20:03, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

I do not have access to the Quarterly Review of Biology review, but the Springer review is dismissive and derisive of the book for multiple reasons, specifically highlighting the author's shoddy sexism. The reviewer facetiously says the book ...has a place of pride on my shelf in between Immanuel Velikovsky and Philippe Rushton (some of whose work is cited In God’s Image). It has no index, which is quite possibly a blessing. The review does nothing to indicate that the book has any independent significance, or is even seen as legitimate scholarship. The book is only academically significant as a demonstration of Meisenberg's pseudoscientific ideology. Anything more than a sentence or two seems like it would be giving this obscure, self-published book undue weight. Grayfell (talk) 01:34, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

If you want, you can read the full text of the Quarterly Review of Biology review here. It seems to be mostly but not entirely unfavorable in its assessment of the book, concluding that "the overall program of the book [is] too extreme, too ideologically driven, and too biologically and anthropologically unsophisticated." IntoThinAir (talk) 01:43, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Great, thanks! Based on that, here's a proposed paragraph:

Meisenberg wrote and paid to publish the 2007 book In God's Image: The Natural History of Intelligence and Ethics, explaining Meisenberg's claims regarding how genotype determines both physiology and behavior. Evolutionary Biologist and historian R. Paul Thompson, for The Quarterly Review of Biology, described the book as well written, but based on unsupported generalizations, saying "the overall program of the book [is] too extreme, too ideologically driven, and too biologically and anthropologically unsophisticated." Anthropologist Jonathan M. Marks, for the International Journal of Primatology, criticized both the underlying premise of the work, and Meisenberg's "uncritical and cavalier approach" to the topic. Marks listed the book with those by J. Phillipe Rushton and Immanuel Velikovsky.

Grayfell (talk) 02:50, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

I just found another review of the book in Cortex. It doesn't seem to be that negative, e.g. in this quote: "No matter how profound or controversial the issues might be, this book presents them in non-technical language and with a subtly ironical approach that only sometimes borders on cynicism about the human condition. The style is flamboyant, the text is full of unexpected turns of thought, full of challenges to received wisdom, and surprising explanations for human thoughts and beliefs." IntoThinAir (talk) 05:07, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

Oh boy. Good find, but, dang, that's hard to work with... I tried to contextualize who wrote each review, but John Glad is going to be tough to do in a neutral way. This is an academic who advocated "humanistic arguments in favour of universal eugenics", and who wrote for Mankind Quarterly and was interviewed in The Occidental Quarterly. This seems like the kind of thing that should be mentioned, right? It's going to seem a bit odd to mention it, but it's going to seem a lot worse to leave it out. Other than two books on eugenics towards the end of his life, his published works appear to be mostly about Russian literature, which seems like an odd qualification for reviewing this book, but as far as I know, Cortex is legit so... I dunno what to do with that. Grayfell (talk) 08:43, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

I say we exclude that per WP:PROFRINGE and the fact that his connection to Mankind Quarterly raises questions about independence. Guy (Help!) 08:45, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

• Good work folks. I especially like the link to Velikovsky. Guy (Help!) 08:24, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

This sounds good to me, too. I just wonder whether we could clarify the final sentence? By "listed the book with those by...", do we mean that the book is being compared with books by those authors? Cordless Larry (talk) 09:26, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

References

I appreciate your attention to my comments. I am a novice and probably selected a subject too controversial to start with. Two additional thoughts: 1) I have compared the German and English version of this subject on Wikipedia. In my opinion, they present two very different pictures of him. How should we handle those discrepancies? 2) Regarding the book in question (In God's image), I have found citations to it in two different books: - Stephen K. Sanderson in In Religious Evolution and the Axial Age: From Shamans to Priests to Prophets (pg 228), he quotes Meisenberg correlations between IQ and religious belief. - It is also cited by Kyle Summers, Bernard Crespi in Human Social Evolution: The Foundational Works of Richard D. Alexander It is also in the catalog of many respectable US libraries (e.g. University of Pennsylvannia, you may find it by doing a catalog search. https://franklin.library.upenn.edu/bento?q=gerhard+meisenberg&meta=t). While I have not read the book, I am sure it expands on the ideas this subject has expressed in the past which are clearly described in the Wikipedia article. Evangw29114 (talk) 18:59, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Each Wikipedia has its own norms, guidelines, and (I think) policies. Content is not always going to be consistent from one to the other. Any changes based on content elsewhere would have to be evaluated on its own merits, and would still have to be based on reliable sources.

Do those new sources contain commentary about the book, or do they merely cite it? Grayfell (talk) 21:13, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Merely citation. Evangw29114 (talk) 23:15, 1 January 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.49.64.85 (talk)

I think editors have unduly emphasized the pay-to-publish nature, subtly pushing a narrative that doesn't exist in sources (at least the sources cited), and have removed "paid to publish" and the sneaky link to vanity press for now. The two reviews comment on Meisenberg's ideas, not the publisher. Wikipedia should not be implicitly or explicitly trying to undermine the author's credibility, regardless of the fringe nature of his views. --Animalparty! (talk) 04:07, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Attack page

When I mentioned here that I was aware of an academic who had been harmed in real life because of his Wikipedia article, Gerhard Meisenberg was the person I was referring to. Today is the second time this article has been tagged as an attack page. The first time was last August, [1] and I think the person who formerly added the tag was one of Meisenberg's former students. This time, it was tagged by an experienced Wikipedian.

Dr. Meisenberg discussed this article with me a few months ago, so I know its history. The majority of the material that's caused the article to be tagged was added by one user, Grayfell. [2] When the article was tagged as an attack page last August, in response to the tag two uninvolved users, user:GB_fan and user:Narssarssuaq, tried to fix the problems with the article. [3] [4] [5] However, all of these users' changes were undone by the person who had originally added the material, [6] [7] restoring the article to the version that had been tagged. From August to the present, Grayfell also has reverted seven other attempts by various users to address the same issues. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] Isn't the Wikipedia community supposed to have safeguards to prevent a user from doing this type of thing to an article about a living person?

I think this article is an embarrassment to Wikipedia in its current state, and I'm clearly not the only person with that opinion. @Phil Bridger: since you declined to delete the article, can you help address the issues that have caused it to be tagged as an attack page twice? @Randykitty: you seem to be tracking my edits (and you've welcomed me to Wikipedia multiple times after my IP address changed), so I'd like your opinion, too. 2600:1004:B123:3B1F:D954:A6C:E861:3E2A (talk) 22:36, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

So you are going around to sympathetic editors WP:CANVASSing about my activity, without letting me know? You've been welcomed multiple times, but still haven't created an account? This kind of behavior is making these issues more difficult to resolve, not less. Please be direct, open, and make an account so other editors know who they are talking to and can reach you when necessary. Editors are expected to respect each other's privacy, so we are not investigating if you IP has changed without a good reason. If you have been welcomed multiple times, it's probably not because someone is "tracking" your edits, it's because they are assuming good faith. This is a policy you should also attempt to follow.

While this should not be seen as a threat, articles related to Meisenberg have a history of disruptive activity from sock puppets, so I would strongly advise you to review Wikipedia:Conflict of interest and Wikipedia:Sock puppetry as well, to understand if and how those issues might apply to you.

Being tagged for deletion establishes that someone has a problem, but it doesn't, by itself, explain what the problem is. So what, exactly, is the specific issue with this article? If you feel this is a violation of Wikipedia's policies on biographies of living persons, consider bringing it up for discussion at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. This information has been documented by reliable sources. If Wikipedia is reflecting those sources, the problem, if there truly is one, is with those sources. Meisenberg's association with Mankind, Lynn, etc. are a large part of why he is notable according to reliable, independent sources. Independent is important here, because repeating Mankind's flattering description of itself would be totally inappropriate for multiple reasons. This is the general standard Wikipedia uses for content. Figuring out how to explain this in a neutral way is difficult, but ignoring it is a temporary fix, at best. Again, if you think this information is incorrect, or is in some other way inappropriate, you will have to explain how it violates Wikipedia's policies.

If you think that my behavior specifically is a problem, again you will have to explain how beyond vague insinuations. Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents would be the place to discuss that, but I would request and strongly advise you to discuss this here, first. Grayfell (talk) 23:48, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Nobody has warned me to make an account. Maybe a different IP user was warned, but I wasn't.

Here are some of the problems with the article:

1: Almost all of the sources cited to describe Mankind Quarterly and the Pioneer Fund are sources that don't mention Meisenberg. At Talk:Linda_Gottfredson, you said that "we should look at what reliable, independent sources say about her go from there". If that is the standard of sourcing for an article about a living person, then this article should be based on sources that are specifically about Meisenberg, not based on sources that don't mention him. Inventing criticism of Meisenberg by citing one source that describes his relationship to PF and MQ, combined with other sources that criticize PF and MQ without mentioning Meisenberg, seems like original synthesis.

2: The Saini source was published in The Guardian's "comment is free" online forum. According to RationalWiki:

"Comment is Free (CiF) is the comment and opinion... "section" on The Guardian's website that publishes content submitted by, well, potentially anyone. Authors are free to suggest themselves, and, if approved, get to write a column. While there are some editorial standards, it's not considered a part of the Guardian proper and it's not supposed to reflect the paper's stance - it's intended to be something of an open forum in the spirit of attracting page views the open exchange of ideas, page views intellectual debate, and page views the accumulation of hundreds of posts with varying level of stupidity in the comment section of each column."

I know RationalWiki itself is not a reliable source, but if that is an accurate description of Comment is Free, how can that type of source be acceptable in an article about a living person?

3: Nature is a high-quality academic journal. It makes no sense that Meisenberg's letter to Nature is excluded from this article, and the article instead only cites the (somewhat slanted) summary of this letter published in Wired magazine. As Narssarssuaq previously pointed out, it would be more encyclopedic to cite his letter directly. 2600:1004:B123:3B1F:D954:A6C:E861:3E2A (talk) 00:35, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

I just noticed your new edit here. You added text saying that Meisenberg "was one of fifteen attendees who contributed to a defense of the conference published in Intelligence in response to media coverage of the event's association with eugenics", cited to this paper. Referring to "the event's association with eugenics" is an egregious misrepresentation of the source you're citing. What the cited source says is that only two of the 75 presentations there were about eugenics, and that the media's characterizing the event as a eugenics conference was inaccurate. 2600:1004:B123:3B1F:D954:A6C:E861:3E2A (talk) 00:44, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Okay. There are several legitimate points here, but these are somewhat complicated issues, so forgive me if I miss anything.

Maybe a different account was warned? How would we know which was you and which wasn't? You do not have to create an account, but I strongly encourage you to. Among other benefits, it will make it much easier to contact you when your IP address inevitably changes. You have posted on other people's talk pages, but we do not necessarily have the same luxury when trying to reach you, because we cannot guess when an IP addresses are no longer being used by you. Please see Wikipedia:Why create an account?

Angela Saini is a relatively widely-published science journalist, and is therefore subject-matter expert. Even if this is a WP:SPS, which I am not sure I fully accept, her opinion on Meisenberg's work can be included with attribution. Whatever her opinion of him as a person absolutely cannot be included without a good reason and a substantial independent source providing that reason. Does that make sense? We are not citing her to insult Meisenberg, we are citing her to help explain to readers that Meisnberg's work is ignored or rejected by the scientific mainstream. This is far from the only source which makes this point, but this seems like a straightforward summary of it. Readers will want to know this. Providing context and background is part of our mission as an encyclopedia.

For the Nature letter, the edit summary was mistaken about something important with how Wikipedia determines things. If not for the Wired article, why would we cite the letter itself? We use the reliable source to establish that this letter was significant. According to that source, the letter was significant. Citing the letter as an additional source would be fine... but who gets to summarize it? Clearly you do not think I should be trusted to summarize it, and honestly, I agree. I don't want to even try to summarize it on its own, because I think that would be too close to WP:OR. The reliable, independent source demonstrates the significance of the letter, and therefore the same source is useful for deciding how to summarize it.

As for the lack of sources about Meisenberg, I see your point, but I don't agree. Not counting the primary sources I just added, there are four sources for this point, and three of them specifically link Meisenberg to racism in some form. The Kincheloe one could be removed, if necessary, although I'm not quite sure why that would make the difference. If you think there is a better way to summarize what the journal is, according to reliable, independent sources, I'm open to hearing it. Likewise, if you know of a reliable, independent source which disputes this as it relates to Meisenberg's role, I would like to see that as well. I admit I'm skeptical that such a source exists, considering the journal's abysmal history, but perhaps there are.

The sources which contextualize Mankind should be better at connection A to B. These sources, however, do exist, and they context is important. This version, which you link above, is not an acceptable alternative. Wikipedia isn't a platform for promotion. We cannot misrepresent this journal as though it were just another "small anthropology journal". This is what Meisenberg called it on his faculty bio page. He did not even mention the name of the journal he edited there, which is interesting, and possibly irrelevant.

The sources for article, as a whole, do suggest that this biography meets WP:NBIO. So, if we accept that, we have to summarize those sources according to due weight, BLP, and also neutrality. The lion's share of coverage of Meisenberg is because of his fringe views on race. You don't have to agree with the coverage, or even respect it, to see that this is true. It would be a disservice to both readers, and to Wikipedia's stance on WP:FRINGE, to gloss-over the reason the article even exists.

Regarding the London conference, the reason the letter was published was because of the many sources connecting it to, well, anti-Islamici rhetoric and racism in general, but eugenics specifically. As far as I know, nobody was saying that all the presentations were on eugenics, nor even that eugenics was the only pseudoscientific topic discussed. I was trying to explain the issue succinctly, so that readers would understand the basic details. The connection to eugenics (etc.) is well-documented and could be expanded, but the existence of these sources cannot be disputed. The letter is not more reliable than the many independent sources about the conference, so it must be summarized in proportion. Grayfell (talk) 01:26, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

The WP:SPS page says: "Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer." If the Saini source is a self-published source, then according to that page it can't be cited in this article, period.

We can't afford to be sloppy with sourcing in this article, the way you were when you added the citation to the letter. This article has directly affected someone's life, so everything must be sourced properly.

You said "The lion's share of coverage of Meisenberg is because of his fringe views on race", but almost all of the sources about that cited in this article are sources that either don't mention him, or mention him only in passing. Here's an analysis of the article's 17 sources.

1. Ross University web page - Entirely about Meisenberg, but doesn't mention race or racism.

2. Schoenberger article - Mentions Meisenberg once in a single sentence, and also doesn't mention race or racism.

3. Van Der Merwe article - Article is 22 paragraphs long, and Meisenberg is mentioned in three of them.

4. Avner Falk source - Doesn't mention Meisenberg.

5. William Tucker source - Doesn't mention Meisenberg.

6. Andrew Wroe source - Doesn't mention Meisenberg.

7. SPLC source - Doesn't mention Meisenberg.

8. Van Der Merwe article again; same as citation #3.

9. Saini source - (self-published) article is 15 paragraphs long and mentions Meisenberg in four paragraphs.

10. second SPLC source - mentions Meisenberg in passing in a single sentence.

11. Kincheloe source - Doesn't mention Meisenberg.

12. Mankind Quarterly editorial board - basic information page that mentions Meisenberg was editor-in-chief of Mankind Quarterly, without saying anything else about him.

13. Wired Source - Quotes the letter to Nature, alongside letters by various other academics, while giving a single sentence of commentary about Meisenberg's letter (also, this appears to be a blog post, not an actual article).

14. Busby source - Mentions Meisenberg in passing in a single sentence.

15. Letter published in Intelligence - Lists Meisenberg as an author, but doesn't say anything about him.

16. Thompson source - Source is about Meisenberg's book, but not about him as a person.

17. Marks source - Source is about Meisenberg's book, but not about him as a person.

So to summarize, this article has only two sources that criticize Meisenberg as an indvidual in even a moderate amount of detail - the Van Der Merwe and Saini articles - and the Saini article can't be cited in an article about a living person because it's self-published. If the Saini article is excluded, there is only a single source for this article that criticizes him and is actually about him (and I'm using that term very loosely). Do you see the problem?

I think the fundamental problem with this article might be that Meisenberg isn't notable enough to deserve his own article. So when Wikipedia tries to have an article about a person like that, instead of any meaningful biographical details we get an article that's 90% criticism, cited almost entirely to sources that either don't mention him, or mention him in only a single sentence. 2600:1004:B123:3B1F:D954:A6C:E861:3E2A (talk) 03:21, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Saini has very recently published a book via an established publisher (ISBN 9780807076910) about scientific racism. This book discusses Meisenberg in at least some detail, including, but is not limited to, a lengthy email exchange she had with him. It will take some time to evaluate all of this, however.

As for the rest of your points, there's a lot I will say later, when I have more time. Briefly, I have not been looking for articles which criticize him, I have been looking for sources which explain why he's notable. This is why a review of his book is included. From what I have seen he is mostly, but not exclusively, notable for having participated as a prominent figure in multiple interrelated organizations that have nothing to do with mainstream biochemistry. We all know why those organizations are significant, and it's pointless to pretend they have a positive reputation in the academic community. If he is notable, and these organizations are notable, the purpose of the article is to explain all of this. Naturally, this would include providing readers with the context that Pioneer, the London Conference, the Ulster group, Mankind, OpenPsych etc. are closely associated, by multiple reliable sources, with eugenics and scientific racism. Leaving this out would be doing a disservice to readers, because they would have a warped understanding of why the article even exists. Grayfell (talk) 20:47, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

• I wrote far too much, but decided to trim so that someone else might actually read it. To summarize, the Saini article in Guardian is not a SPS, and neither is the Wired article, they are opinions.

We shouldn't ignore reviews of his book because the reviews are not about him as a person. They are about his professional work.

Many of the above links are used for context or for supporting details. Once someone has an article, such sources can fill in significant details, such as where that person works and when. So are all of these links necessary or helpful? Probably not, but being a passing mention isn't necessarily relevant, per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS.

Is this about WP:DUE? Perhaps, but if so, we should resolve the notability issues first.

Notability is always complicated. Wikipedia has multiple guidelines (not policies) for this: Wikipedia:Notability (academics), Wikipedia:Notability (people), and Wikipedia:Notability (see specifically WP:GNG). He may also fall under WP:AUTHOR, since he wrote In God's Image.

I am honestly not sure if I would support deleting this article.

He was the editor-in-chief of a very notable journal, Mankind Quarterly. This is a notable journal, but hardly a "major" one called for by WP:NACADEMIC. That guideline also says Journals dedicated to promoting pseudo-science and marginal or fringe theories are generally not covered by [this criterea]... I do not see any other clear-cut way he meets N:PROF.

The Saini book is pretty substantial, and appears reliable. This source does help establish notability.

Looking for additional sources about him, I am finding many citations from the same small walled garden of Mankind Contributors and Pioneer Fund recipients (Saini calls it "a closed, self-containted network", which sums it up nicely). I do not think we should use these, but don't think it would matter either way, regarding notability.

I don't know if all of these mostly minor sources are enough. Grayfell (talk) 02:27, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

• 2600, whoever you are, I took at look at the New Statesman article. You wrote only three paragraphs wrote about him. However, don't you recognize that those three paragraphs say something meaningful about him? New Statesman quotes Saini:

“Having researched Lynn and Meisenberg, I fail to understand how Intelligence can justify having these two on the editorial board...” “I find that very difficult to understand. Academic freedom does not require that these people are given any more space than their research demands – which for a discredited idea like racial eugenics is frankly minuscule.”

So, why isn't this a meaningful RS to cite? Geo Swan (talk) 00:37, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

• I was asked to comment. I consider myself neutral. I think he's a notable academic, but his views are somewhere in the range between not currently fashionable and disreputable. It is not the role of WP to decide just where--it is the role of WP to give information fairly so people can judge for themselves. It is wrong to prejudge or bias this by emphasising pejorative terms in the description, but none the less , there needs to be enough context so a readers will not be confused.

I have previously commented with respect to an individual who had published in MQ, and received a grant from the Pioneer Fund, that this by itself did not indicate the person subscribed to the general views of MQ and PF and their nature does need to be mentioned but not overemphasized or used in the lede, commented on, but that we should rely for this on the articles on those two subjects. But Meisenberger is the former editor in chief of MQ and codirector of the PF--and this is a very much strogner connection. The e-ic of a journal is certainly associated with the journal's general views, and similarly for the director of a foundation.

There is no question that Meisenberg is notable; he is notable under WP:PROF for his earlier work in biochemistry. first, co-author of a major textbook, second research papers that Google Scholar demonstrates to have been reasonably highly cited. He is also notable in my opinion under both WP:PROF and WP:GNG for his more conteroversial work: it is highly cited, .so it is a major influence--which does not necessarily mean a positive influence, and it is a subject of general controversy.

I consider that WP:NPOV means that we must include fair articles on people we disagree with, and that it is a dis-service to he public for which WP exists to conceal the existence of dissidents. Ther best way of handling their opinions to ito present them, in context, and trust the reader to judge. DGG ( talk ) 07:17, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

@Geo Swan:: If there is going to be a Wikipedia article about Meisenberg, I don't object to the New Statesman article being cited, because it is the one definitely reliable source that has criticized Meisenberg in detail. I brought up the fact that the article has only three paragraphs about him because I was disputing whether he's notable enough to have his own Wikipedia article (and most of the other sources say less about him than that). But most people seem to think he's notable enough, so we can forget about that particular argument.

If this article isn't going to be deleted, its sourcing needs to be improved. Here are the changes that I think should be made:

1. Remove the five sources that don't mention Meisenberg. The criticism of Meisenberg for his involvement with MQ and the Pioneer Fund should be cited to sources that actually criticize Meisenberg for his involvement in them. Now that I've seen how strict the requirements are for sourcing about living people, I think a good principle in articles like this would would be that any source used to criticize a living person must actually mention the person. The New Statesman article mentions that the SPLC considers the Pioneer Fund a hate group, and the 2018 SPLC article (which mentions Meisenberg by name) calls Mankind Quarterly a "racist journal", so those sources and descriptions should be sufficient.

2. Remove the citation to Saini's "comment is free" article, which appears to be self-published, and not acceptable as a source about a living person. Citing Saini's book may or may not be okay, depending on whether sources qualify as reliable when they haven't been published yet. I can't find a policy page that answers that question, so I would like DGG's opinion.

3. Quote Meisenberg's letter to Nature directly, instead of quoting the summary of his letter from the Wired blog.

4: Add citations to two books that provide neutral summaries of some of Meisenberg's research: Cognitive Capitalism (especially pp. 410-412) and At Our Wits' End. The summaries given in these books are valuable because they are from professionals in the same fields Meisenberg has written about, not by outraged journalists who lack a scientific background in these areas. At Our Wits End might be one of the sources Grayfell was referring to when he mentioned "the same small walled garden of Mankind Contributors and Pioneer Fund recipients", because one of the book's authors is the person who eventually replaced Meisenberg as the editor in chief of Mankind Quarterly. However, this particular book was published by a reputable academic publisher, so it should qualify as a reliable source.

@DGG: What is your opinion about these proposed changes? 2600:1004:B157:3C7:4C14:E1E6:3C23:7CB1 (talk) 17:23, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Comment is Free is the former name of The Guardian's opinion section. It's not self-published. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:56, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Selectively pinging the one unblocked editor here who seem slightly sympathetic to your cause is not appropriate behavior, but since you know how to use a ping template, I suspect you already know that.

We could remove those extra sources... by if you accept their claims, why would we? From past experience, editors often dispute these descriptions based on the mistaken interpretation of WP:V and WP:NPOV. Have additional sources for context helps minimize this disruptive behavior.

The book will, almost certainly, be published very soon, otherwise it wouldn't be previewed on Google Books. If you feel this is so urgent that you cannot wait a few more days, please explain the specific issue. Not all opinions are SPS, as at least two editors have explained.

I have already explained why direct quotes from an obscure letter are not appropriate by themselves. There are countless arbitrary ways individual editors could summarize a primary source, so Wikipedia pays more attention to independent sources.

In an interview for the white supremacist website American Renaissance in 2016, Richard Lynn was asked about "rising stars" in the field. He listed Heiner Rindermann, Davide Piffer, Michael Woodley, and Edward Dutton.[15] So for that and many other reasons, I would absolutely consider both of those books to be part of the same walled-garden. Any use of these sources would require attribution and context, and the context is not particularly strong.

In response to the same question Lynn says "Davide Piffer has done brilliant work identifying the genes responsible for race differences in intelligence. He is from the north of Italy where the more intelligent Italians are found." Hopefully this demonstrates the transparently racist and petty discourse we're dealing with, if nothing else. Lynn does also mention Meisenberg in that interview as one of very few colleagues who accepted Lynn's supposed findings that adult men have higher IQs than adult women.

It's funny how Meisenberg and his colleagues, such as Lynn and Dutton, are so eager to present backlash to their work as "political correctness" or "outraged journalists" or similar. It's clear, as DGG says, they get cited pretty often anyway. The raw quantity of intelligence research is staggering. Much of it is even applicable to "race" as the heriditarians attempt to define it. When scientists bother to examine this junk closely, which they are not obligated to do, they usually ignore or actively reject these findings. This is completely incompatible with the claim that this is part of the mainstream consensus. They cannot have it both ways. This matters to Wikipedia, also. Wikipedia isn't a research platform. It is designed to be a reflection of the existing consensus. Wikipedia has an active duty to prevent WP:FRINGE pseudoscience from being misrepresented as acceptable. Grayfell (talk) 20:15, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Well, this is certainly interesting, particularly your last paragraph, and it explains a lot about your pattern of editing on various BLP articles over the past year. If I understand you correctly, you're arguing that sources that present intelligence research ought to be rejected as pseudoscience, even if they satisfy the criteria described at Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Is that what you are arguing?

This is what needs to be addressed, because otherwise even if the Meisenberg article is fixed, there's going to be a similar problem on another BLP article in another few months. Let's take a closer look at your argument that this research is a "walled garden" and that scientists "usually ignore or actively reject these findings". As a professional in a closely related field, I am familiar enough with the relevant literature to evaluate this argument.

Last year, Nature Genetics published a literature review describing the current state of research about genetics and intelligence, which cited two papers by Linda Gottfredson, and a book by Arthur Jensen. An earlier literature review published in the same journal also contained citations to Jensen and Gottfredson. The sources cited in both of these literature reviews include Gottfredson's editorial "Mainstream Science on Intelligence". By your standards, does this make Nature Genetics part of the "walled garden", and a publisher of pseudoscience that Wikipedia should avoid citing?

Rindermann's Cognitive Capitalism was published by Cambridge University Press. Another recent book on this topic published by Cambridge is The Neuroscience of Intelligence by Richard J. Haier. Haier's book cites research by Gottfredson, Jensen, and Charles Murray. A slightly older textbook from Cambridge University press is Earl Hunt's Human Intelligence, which cites papers by most of the major players: Gottfredson, Jensen, Rushton, Rindermann, and Lynn. Does this mean Cambridge University Press is part of the "walled garden" also?

Perhaps you think all sources about human intelligence are part of the walled garden, regardless of who the publisher is, but if that's your attitude you'd have to reject sources about more than just that one topic. Knopik et al.'s Behavioral Genetics, which is the standard textbook in that field, cites material by Jensen, Rushton, Gottfredson, and The Bell Curve when discussing human intelligence. Gottfredson and other intelligence researchers also are extensively cited in Ashton's Individual Differences and Personality, which is the standard textbook about individual differences psychology.

This is also true of general purpose psychology textbooks. Gray and Bjorklund's textbook Psychology cites several books and papers by Jensen and Gottfredson to discuss the ability of IQ tests to predict success in the real world, and also cites papers by Robert Plomin and Ian Deary, the authors of the two literature reviews published in Nature Genetics. James Kalat's textbook Introduction to Psychology also cites several papers by Gottfredson, Plomin and Deary. These are two of the most widely-used general psychology textbooks currently in print, but do you consider them part of the "walled garden" also?

It's important that you address this, because there clearly is a close relationship between your belief that certain types of sources must be excluded, and your long-term pattern of editing on these articles. How do you justify calling intelligence research "fringe pseudoscience", and argue that it is unacceptable for Wikipedia, when it is being presented as valid in the most prominent academic journals and textbooks? 2600:1004:B10A:FBE1:D10C:6733:3ECA:13B3 (talk) 22:41, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

No, you didn't understand what I was saying, apparently at all, and this has veered far into WP:NOTFORUM territory. To briefly explain my comment: At no point did I say ALL sources that present intelligence research ought to be rejected as pseudoscience. This is a gross misunderstanding of my point, if not an intentional misrepresentation. Intelligence research is prolific and mainstream, and these hereditarian researchers have been cited within that field. Therefore, any claims that they are being suppressed or silenced must be viewed within that context, and I see this as a refutation of that claim. There is nothing censorious about pointing out the flaws in research, and the flaws are many and well-documented. They are not being silenced, they are being humored to an extraordinary degree.

The hereditarian perspective on racialism, race and intelligence has already been rejected as politically-motivated pseudoscience. This is not my opinion, this is the scientific mainstream. If scientists who advocate the racial-hereditarian position also publish legitimate research on tangential topics, so be it. This doesn't change the walled-garden nature of this specific psuedoscientific belief system. Grayfell (talk) 01:08, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Let's return to the specific sources I was suggesting. I suggested adding a description of Meisenberg's research from Cognitive Capitalism, which is published by Cambridge University Press, and to At Our Wits' End, which is published by Societas. Both of these are books published by reputable academic publishers, from authors who have published numerous papers in mainstream journals. [16] [17] (I couldn't find a Google Scholar profile for Dutton, so perhaps he's less prominent than the other two.)

If you review the list of publications by Rindermann and Woodley, you'll see that most of it has not been published in fringe journals such as Mankind Quarterly. The journals where they've published most of their research are journals that are regularly cited in the textbooks I mentioned in my previous comment.

The definition of reliable sources at Wikipedia:Reliable sources does not say anything about the reliability of a source being affected by what viewpoint it takes. Criteria mentioned on that page are the extent of the coverage, the age of the source, and who it was published by. This page states, "Scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports for academic topics". And with respect to the sources that have only a single sentence about Meisenberg, note also: "Information provided in passing by an otherwise reliable source that is not related to the principal topics of the publication may not be reliable; editors should cite sources focused on the topic at hand where possible." I am not saying the news articles that mention Meisenberg in a single sentence should necessarily be excluded, but you are applying a double standard by saying those sources should be cited, but that scholarly books that have several pages about him should not be. If anything, that policy page supports doing the opposite.

Do you have any valid policy basis for rejecting the two sources I suggested? By "valid policy basis", I mean a basis that would not result in large amounts of obviously reliable sources being rejected, if it were applied consistently. 2600:1004:B111:1A6:5559:A048:F49E:68D8 (talk) 02:53, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

This question is loaded and leading to an almost comical degree. As I've said, all sources need context, so vaguely proposing sources is only vaguely helpful.

Wait. Before I answer that further, can you indicate why you haven't created an account yet? You have recently posted tens of thousands of bytes across several articles, talk pages, and noticeboards that I'm aware of, and likely even more which I am not. All of these posts are related to the controversial topic of race an intelligence. This topic has a long history of sock-puppetry and similar disruptive edits, so I don't think it's unreasonable to ask. By using a shifting IP, it makes it very difficult to discuss your behavior, or to discuss policies issues, or to understand which issues have already been explained. This article, for example, is under discretionary sanctions, but I have no way of know if you understand that, or even know what that means. Normally, I would discuss this with you on your talk page... but I cannot, since there is no reason to assume you would see it, as your IP address apparently changes very frequently. There are also privacy issues, since your approximate location is public knowledge via your IP address, among many other issues. Grayfell (talk) 03:27, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Is it any business of yours why I haven't made an account? It seems inappropriate to ask someone this, since you already mentioned that making an account isn't required.

Making an account would represent a level of commitment to Wikipedia that I'm not ready to make yet, and I don't want to make an account that I wouldn't use very often. I've recently devoted much more time to Wikipedia than I wanted to. If the issues on this article can be resolved, after that I intend to go back to making only a few edits per month. But my original reason for participating in Wikipedia was the conversation I had with Meisenberg about how his Wiki article has affected him in real life, so on this particular article, I want to make the best effort I can to improve it.

Here is what I'm proposing to add from those two sources. I'd like to add the summary from pages 410-412 in Cognitive Capitalism about Meisenberg's model of economic growth as it relates to intelligence and education. I'd also like to add the summary from At Our Wits' End of research by Meisenberg about intelligence having declined over time, and his theories about the cause of that trend. Is there any policy-based reason to not include that from those two sources? 2600:1004:B111:1A6:5559:A048:F49E:68D8 (talk) 04:24, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

• Some general remarks

1. I do not accept journalism as a RS for criticisms of science. It is however, a reliable source for the reception of science, for a general view on the significance to the public.
2. I tend to tak editors more seriously if they do have accounts. Rightly or wrongly, it make me wonder about hidden agendas.
3. Anyone pinging me takes their chances on what i will say, especially if they attempt to indicate what response they would like.
4. I interpret the WP policy on pseudoscience to say that it indicate that it is generally considered pseudoscience, but that it is enough to indicate it, not repeat it.
5. I do not consider all "hereditarian" views of human differences identical, and would not consider some of them to necessarily be pseudoscience.
6. Considering advances in molecular biology, especially the identification of multiple rather than single genes controlling what might at first seem to be even simple phenotypes, I would assume any facile generalizing view to be premature. I certainly will not state one myself, or say that WP should write articles based on the assumption that current views are permanently valid. We want our readers to recognize the uncertainty in science, for otherwise they will not be open to understanding the inevitable advances in scientific knowledge.
7. fwiw, my teacher in human genetics was Curt Stern. Reading that bio may give some perspective.

• As for specific questions, I do not think the nature of the current discussion indicates that my manner of working at WP will be of value here. DGG ( talk ) 22:06, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
• I am 100% in agreement with DGG, with the sole exception that I cannot claim to have been a student of Curt Stern (but I have a book he wrote). --Randykitty (talk) 22:22, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Since the two books that I suggested qualify as reliable sources as defined at Wikipedia:Reliable sources, and no one has given any policy-based reason to exclude them, I'm going to add them now. I'm also going to remove the sources from the first paragraph that don't mention Meisenberg, and base the criticism for his involvement in Mankind Quarterly and the Pioneer Fund on the sources that mention him by name, since that was the one other change I've proposed that Grayfell seemed willing to accept.

There's still more work that needs to be done on this article. Next, I'd like to discuss whether Meisenberg's letter to Nature should be cited directly instead of citing the summary of it from the Wired blog, and which of the Saini material to include. 2600:1004:B167:92AB:8CC3:D233:81E5:77EC (talk) 01:51, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I have already explained the problems with citing the letter, and you have still not demonstrated that you understand this problem.

As I said, simply proposing sources was too vague to be actionable. Your edit selectively highlighted an arbitrary and flattering summary of his controversial work. Any comments about Meisenberg's findings should be contextualized, and this would strongly benefit from explaining the astonishingly close-knit background of the scholars involved, or at the very least providing a means for readers to find this out for themselves if they wish.

The article will still, as always, need to based on reliable, independent sources about his work with clear attribution. Grayfell (talk) 02:50, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I know what your argument is for not citing the letter. It is basically the same argument you made on the Linda Gottfredson article as to why that article's summary of her "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" editorial should be based on a partisan third-party source, instead of citing the editorial directly. When you made that argument on that article's talk page, your argument was rejected by every other person participating there. But perhaps you can convince DGG and RandyKitty that in this case, a different standard should be applied.

On the Gottfredson article, you repeatedly emphasized that we must look at what's stated in reliable sources that are about Gottfredson (your emphasis), and base the article's coverage on that. But here, your comment about "the astonishingly close-knit background" of Woodley, Dutton, Rindermann and Meisenberg does not appear to be supported by any reliable sources. (Or if it is, you haven't presented them.) According to your own argument that you made previously, this article should be based on what reliable sources say about Meisenberg, not based on your personal opinions about what readers need to know.

Here are the changes I'd like to make next:

1: I'd like to replace the Wired summary of Meisenberg's letter to Nature with a citation to the letter itself, for the reasons that were explained at Talk:Linda Gottfredson with respect to the "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" editorial. As DGG stated there, "If we are reporting what a source says, and the wording is critical, it must come from the source itself. This is one of the cases where secondary sources are less reliable. (This is especially true for sources which may be generally on the other side of a controversy.)"

2: I'd like to remove the sentence that says, "Science journalist Angela Saini, in an opinion for The Guardian, has said that Meisenberg's views on race and intelligence are 'unsupported by evidence' and 'generally receive little to no attention from within the everyday scientific community'", cited to Saini's "Comment is Free" article. Assuming this source is actually not self-published, there are still two problems with that sentence. First, at no point does the Wikipedia article explain what Meisenberg's views on race and intelligence actually are, and it makes no sense to criticize an idea without explaining what the idea is first. Second, even if his views on race and intelligence were explained in the article, it isn't clear why a journalist's opinion about them is significant enough to mention. This sort of criticism would be much more meaningful if it were being made by a psychologist or a geneticist.

@DGG: @Randykitty: what is your opinion about those proposed changes? 2600:1004:B167:92AB:8CC3:D233:81E5:77EC (talk) 04:04, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Gottfredson's article now (at least minimally) indicates here regressive views on race, specifically their political implications. This is appropriate, because this is mainly what reliable, independent sources are talking about. Sources which cite her work should be evaluated in context, which is the same standard this article needs to be held to. Since I would not cite Dutton or Woodley for any claims about ancient Roman or Greek history, I am not interested in helping you to add two lengthy, bland, and vague paragraphs summarizing this content. I think the current summary is sufficient, but if you disagree, you will have to explain why. If the best that can be said about these books is that are not technically unreliable, the case has not been made yet.

Gottfredson's letter was independently significant, and has its own article. I still think that article is incomplete without an explanation of this. Right now it lacks even a Wikilink, which seems conspicuous, doesn't it? We should mention it because its significance was documented by many reliable, independent sources. So why are we mentioning the Nature letter here? In this case, its significance comes from only one source, which is the "partisan, third-party" Wired source. Therefore, we summarize what a reliable source says about it. Grayfell (talk) 04:24, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

The summary of Dutton and Woodley's book is mostly okay, but you haven't given a good reason for reducing the summary from Rindermann's book to a single sentence. Cambridge University Press is a high-quality academic publisher, and Rindermann is a psychologist who's an expert on the relationship between intelligence and economic prosperity. It would be difficult to imagine a more authoritative source about Meisenberg's model in that area.

The Wired post does not establish Meisenberg's letter to Nature as significant. The post is primarily about the debate between Steven Rose and Williams/Ceci, and goes on to mention letters about the debate submitted by Kathryn Holt, James Flynn, and Gerhard Meisenberg. Only a single sentence of commentary is given about Meisenberg's letter. Based on its meager coverage in independent sources (one sentence of commentary in a rather obscure source), would you accept removing the mention of that letter? 2600:1004:B167:92AB:8CC3:D233:81E5:77EC (talk) 04:54, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Re-reading: the Wired post is a comment on all the letters in Nature, including Meisenberg's. However, the Wired summary is inaccurate to the point of bias, quoting " We should not get stuck in the twentieth-century assumption that environments are changeable but genes are not. This will no longer be the case in the twenty-first century" but commenting without any justification and ignoring Meisenberg's contrast between the 20th and 21st century, that he might be referring to "selective breeding" as well as genetic engineering. Using it to replace a cite to the letter is unacceptable, and this shows very well the reason for not using other people's summaries of a person's writing to replace the person's actual writing. What must be cited is his letter. Citing this comment instead is impermissible. Nor do I think it fair to cite it as a comment on the letter without including other comments, if available. It's not essential to this article. It would be appropriate to the article on his letter. DGG ( talk ) 06:16, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

I have rephrased the summary to indicate the speculative nature of his comments. "Selective breeding" of humans is also known as eugenics, and I do not see any benefit to readers in humoring Meisenberg's preference for florid euphemisms, but so be it. I do not trust myself, this IP, DGG, or any other editor to summarize this letter neutrally. This is why we need a reliable, independent source.

What, exactly, is Rindermann saying about Meisenberg? This was confusing and stilted attribution. It was not clear from the summary which parts were Rindermann and which were Meisenberg. Is Rindermann saying that these ambitious, specific predictions are likely accurate or useful? Was he saying how this was supported, or was this a passing mention? Ths is not fully viewable on Google books, but other pages which are suggest that this is at least slightly more nuanced then it was presented. (I would also invite everyone else to look at the chart on the same page, above this section. Specifically, look at the last column, which has two digits past the decimal point in a prediction of racial IQs in the year 2100. This is scientism, but there are those who take these numbers deadly serious.) Likewise, it was not clear which parts were vital and which were incidental or trivial, and highlighting specific statistics seems potentially arbitrary. Grayfell (talk) 06:55, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

If you don't trust any of us to summarize the letter ourselves, then the mention of the letter should be removed. A passing mention in a single, obscure source isn't enough to establish the letter as significant.

I'll make another attempt to summarize the Rindermann source soon, but not having access to the relevant pages at Google books isn't a good reason for reverting. I also intend to remove the sentence cited to Saini's article saying that Meisenberg's views on race and intelligence are unsupported by evidence (without mentioning what those views are), for the reasons I explained two comments ago, unless someone has a policy-based argument against removing that sentence. 2600:1004:B121:8C32:A571:BE44:5977:8D58 (talk) 07:25, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

A few days ago I noticed the post about this article at the BLP noticeboard, and I'll make a general comment. In a biography of a scientist, the information it's most important to include is about the research he or she has done. The reception of that research may also be included, but only in the context of describing the research itself. A biography article should not criticize a scientist's views without first describing those views, which is what this article seems to do. --tickle me 18:28, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

The discussion here seems to have reached a conclusion. Grayfell hasn't presented any argument against the other three changes I'm proposing (removing the Wired summary, removing the sentence about race and intelligence, and adding more detail from the Rindermann source), and two other users (user:DGG and user:Tickle_me) have expressed support for some of these changes, so I'm going to proceed with them now. 2600:1004:B152:1E56:BC2D:9CC4:F3FC:1D5 (talk) 08:31, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Given that there were a bunch of other people criticizing your basis for the proposed changes in various ways above (certainly comparable to the brief statements by tickle and DGG), and given that DGG was specifically canvassed here by you, I'm not really seeing a consensus to remove so many reliably-sourced statements, no. Just based on the sourcing we have, the description and characterization of the article's subject in secondary sources seems to be one major source of his notability, so I don't see why we would remove that sort of commentary. --Aquillion (talk) 16:47, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

• I don't agree with the assertion that the most important information in the bio of a scientist is the research they've done. The most important thing is what they are notable for, just like any other topic. A scientist who is largely notable for the controversy over their work rather than the academic impact of their work ought to have an article that largely covers that controversy. That absolutely describes Meisenberg; without the critical sources this would trivially fail WP:ACADEMIC. Research that has received little secondary coverage and few citations is not notable and should not receive much focus, even if (as in Meisenberg's case) the author is famous for other things. --Aquillion (talk) 16:30, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
  • I'm with User:Aquillion on this. It's the way we develop articles - what do reliable sources suggest are the most significant thing about the subject of an article. Research with little secondary coverage is not important to our article. Doug Weller talk 15:35, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

"commonly described as a white supremacist journal"

This statement isnt backed up by the sources currently in the article --FMSky (talk) 16:08, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Feel free to add sources from main article Mankind Quarterly. Commonly described as white supremacist, racist, and pseudo-scientific would be a viable alternative here. Generalrelative (talk) 17:44, 8 August 2023 (UTC)