Talk:The 10,000 Year Explosion

Citations list useful for updating this article and related articles Suggestion

You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of Anthropology and Human Biology Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human genetics and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library system at a university with an active research program in these issues (and to other academic libraries in the same large metropolitan area) and have been researching these issues from time to time since 1989. You are welcome to use these citations for your own research. You can help other Wikipedians by suggesting new sources through comments on that page. It will be extremely helpful for articles on human genetics to edit them according to the Wikipedia standards for reliable sources for medicine-related articles, as it is important to get these issues as well verified as possible. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 03:34, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

Primary source issues

I have added a tag for WP:PRIMARY issues. To briefly explain my concerns, the article is almost entirely based on the book itself, and is an excessively detailed summary of the book.

Using a book as a source for an article about that book is (obviously) acceptable, but the article should primarily be based on independent sources. This article is not a neutral summary of independent sources. There are some reviews cited, but these are mostly confined to the 'reviews' section. The only major independent source for the article which is about the book itself is the Seed review. Most of the other sources predate the publication of the book, and are used as support for the arguments made by the book. This is an WP:OR problem, and is not appropriate for several reasons. Further, the Seed review is relatively favorable, but it does point out many of the flaws and controversies surrounding the book. These points are glossed-over in the article, which presents a distorted presentation of the content of the book.

To repeat in simple terms: Articles about specific books should summarize based on reliable, independent sources about those books. Grayfell (talk) 23:43, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

Again, my concern is that the article fails to accurately summarize reliable, independent sources. The SLPC is a reliable source, and their assessment of Harpending's work and perspective is significant to a broad understanding of that work. If we have some specific, sourced reason to think the SPLC is incorrect, let's see it. Stating the opinion that this point is incorrect, just because it's unflattering, is whitewashing. Wikipedia is not a platform for advocacy of WP:FRINGE ideas, such as Harpending and MacDonald's pseudoscience. Grayfell (talk) 00:46, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

I think this has already been adequately explained in the edit summaries, but I'll elaborate a little more:

Harpending's writings about Ashkenazi Intelligence have been covered in at least a dozen sources, including the various book reviews cited in this article, as well as The New York Times, The Economist, and Steven Pinker in The New Republic. The majority of reliable, independent sources regard this as a legitimate scientific hypothesis. Among all the sources whose view could be be presented in that section, why choose the SPLC, when there are much better sources available, most of which have taken the opposite view? As a psychologist, Steven Pinker in particular has expertise in this area. Note that Pinker does not regard MacDonald's hypothesis as worth taking seriously, but his coverage of Harpending's hypothesis is mildly positive. 2600:1004:B166:2880:3CE3:328E:4A54:5E0F (talk) 01:17, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

We should replace the SPLC and Long Beach sources with the Pinker Source. As you said, Pinker is an authority on evolutionary psychology. The Long Beach source does not mention Harpending or this book much — Preceding unsigned comment added by AndewNguyen (talk • contribs) 08:38, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Right. In this case, Pinker clearly is more in line with mainstream sources such as The New York Times than the SPLC is, so I'll make the change if nobody presents a policy-based argument against it. However, I would still like to get an opinion from @NPalgan2:, if possible. 2600:1004:B140:9FDA:109B:24F8:649C:B1EE (talk) 16:35, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

This would be false balance and whitewashing. The SPLC is a reliable source, and reliable sources are what Wikipedia is concerned with. Waiting for a sympathetic editor to respond is not appropriate, and is not how consensus is built.

You have been warned many times about WP:CANVAS, and you cannot use your shifting address as an excuse for ignorance anymore. You also have not disclosed any conflicts of interest, despite clear familiarity with both the topic and this specific group of pseudo-scientists. As has been requested by many editors over many months of activity, please create an account so that other editors have some way of reaching you. This is especially disruptive since you are eager to ping and harangue other editors at whim, but have left no way for anyone else to respond on their own terms. You are gaming the system to control the conversation, which is disruptive.

While Pinker may represent one significant perspective, ("the World's most annoying man" represents the Mainstream?) it's painfully obvious that this isn't the only significant perspective. 'Others disagree, saying that the study, which contained no footnotes and was written in an impassioned tone not typical of academic literature, was not scientifically rigorous enough. “It’s bad science,” Harry Ostrer, medical geneticist at Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine, told New York magazine. “It’s bad genetics and bad epidemiology.” Some of the mutations the study discusses can even lead to mental retardation, says Risch, who adds, “In my view, there is currently no scientific evidence that Jewish achievement or intelligence has a genetic basis.”'[1] If you have been looking at sources, you have seen this point come up over and over again. If you have been ignoring these sources, you are cherry-picking to distort the academic acceptance of this fringe, racialist perspective. Grayfell (talk) 21:18, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

I pinged NPalgan2 because he is the only other person currently participating in this article. You may not want to acknowledge it, but you are the one controlling this conversation, for the reason I explained in the section below. Think back to your participation in these articles a year ago, when you were able to get your way most of the time, and compare it to what things have been like more recently. Are you not able to see the difference, and understand how your actions have been causing that? You can blame this long-term trend on other editors all you like, but that won't prevent this trend continuing as long as you continue to encourage it. (Which if fine with me if that's what you want, but it's disingenuous of you to blame it on others, and you know that.)

I'm aware that some of the mainstream sources have included criticism of Harpending's hypothesis, but among all the dozen of sources that have covered it, the SPLC is by far the most extreme in its criticism. If we're going to choose one source out of the dozen or so available, it makes no sense to single out the most negative of them. We should choose one that's in the middle of the road in terms of its viewpoint. If you think Pinker is too positive to be middle of the road, how about using the New York Times article? 2600:1004:B14B:DE67:7C8B:1F19:9145:3AAF (talk) 21:41, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

I would prefer the Pinker source over the New York Times, but The NYT would still be an improvement over the SPLC, if we can not agree on citing Pinker AndewNguyen (talk) 22:41, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

Okay, I suppose the New York Times article is a good compromise. The views presented in that article have a balance of positive and negative opinions about Harpending's work, instead of being entirely one or the other. I'll make that change soon if no one presents a policy-based argument against it. 2600:1004:B141:DBA:4C0A:8BC7:FC9E:6BA9 (talk) 15:07, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

No, there's no consensus for this. We don't get to pick and choose which source we prefer. If you want to add more sourced reviews, please go ahead. But the SPLC is a relevant and reliable source and should stay. – Joe (talk) 16:08, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

If you think it's best to use multiple sources in that section, we can add some of these other sources (including Pinker) in addition to the SPLC. However, I feel strongly that it is undue weight to include the Longbeachize source, because that appears to be a very minor, non-academic source, and it also has only a single sentence about the book. Would that be acceptable? 2600:1004:B148:86B9:3C48:3DFB:FF53:AE59 (talk) 16:25, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

What is the "Longbeachize source"? – Joe (talk) 17:00, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

I am referring to this source, which was added by Grayfell in this edit. If you read this article, you'll see that it barely mentions the book. 2600:1004:B118:278B:80C1:45BD:C12A:D6AB (talk) 17:06, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

We seem to be approaching a consensus, so as per your suggestion I'll go ahead and add the New York Times and Pinker sources, while retaining the SPLC source. I'm leaving out the Longbeachize source, but if anyone has a policy-based argument that this section should include a minor news article that contains a single sentence about the book, let's hear it. 2600:1004:B166:549C:E527:C3A5:E9A6:82FD (talk) 18:09, 22 July 2019 (UTC)