Talk:Hereditarianism/Archive 1

Archive 1

chomsky

whether chomsky would consider himself a hereditarian or not, this article does not tell us: [1]. chomsky is (in many cases rightly) pointing out misinterpretations or alternative interpretations of conclusions made by other hereditarians, but not in such as a way as he would agree with an anti-hereditarian.

chomsky defended sociobiology at a time when it was fashionable for all liberal thinking academics to disclaim it. that, and his theories on language, put him somewhere other than the behaviorist camp. if you consider hereditarianism to be "not behaviorism" then chomsky is in. if you have a definition of a "true" hereditarian, (or a "true" anything) then the very contarian Chomsky will probably not fit that defintion. --Rikurzhen 17:30, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Two new additions to the "Contemporary hereditarianism" section

I just added human behavioral ecology and dual inheritance theory. Check them out and see what you think. EPM 23:26, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Quote farm

too many quotes and not much explanation. Some of the quotes are taken out of context. Unfortunately not much information here. Might even be a good idea to merge into genetic determinism. Wapondaponda (talk) 21:30, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Intelligence Citations Bibliography for Articles Related to IQ Testing

This article needs more sources. You may find it helpful while reading or editing articles to look at a bibliography of Intelligence Citations, posted for the use of all Wikipedians who have occasion to edit articles on human intelligence and related issues. I happen to have circulating access to a huge academic research library at a university with an active research program in those issues (and to another library that is one of the ten largest public library systems in the United States) and have been researching these issues 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. I'll be adding new sources about genetics (besides the ones already listed) to the page soon. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk) 14:51, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Noam Chomsky

The article says that Chomsky defends the legitimacy of the Race and Intelligence question, but a paper he wrote makes it seem like he believes quite the opposite:

It is difficult to be precise about questions of scientific merit. Roughly, an inquiry has scientific merit if its results might bear on some general principles of science. One doesn't conduct inquiries into the density of blades of grass on various lawns or innumerable other trivial and pointless questions. Likewise, inquiry into such questions as race and IQ appears to be of virtually no scientific interest. Conceivably, there might be interest in correlations between partially heritable traits, but if someone were interested in this question he would surely not select such characteristics as race and IQ, each an obscure amalgam of complex properties. Rather, he would ask whether there is a correlation between measurable and significant traits, say, eye color and length of the big toe. It is difficult to see how the study of race and IQ can be justified on any scientific grounds.

http://www.chomsky.info/articles/1978----.htm

Grumpy Complainer (talk) 06:03, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Removed content

I recently removed the following content:

Hereditarianism is almost universally supported when used to explain physical differences such as skin color, and psychometric differences such as individual differences in IQ.

References

None of the sources provided are indicative of "almost universal" acceptance of a hereditarianism explanation. The restoring comment suggests that these are reliable sources. However, reliable sources cannot be used to support content which is not in the sources. aprock (talk) 16:38, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for noting your reasoning for removing this. I think this may be a case which demonstrates the need to provide specific, accurate explanations when removing content. When you deleted this, your explanation was simply, "remove incorrect statement not based on reliable sourcing". Upon seeing that these are, in fact, reliable sources, I restored the content. A specific rationale, as you've now stated ("None of the sources provided are indicative of "almost universal" acceptance of a hereditarianism explanation."), is much more constructive.

I agree that the phrase "almost universal" is not quite supported by the articles. One states, "This statement [the article] outlines conclusions regarded as mainstream among researchers on intelligence. ... The following conclusions are fully described in the major textbooks, professional journals and encyclopedias in intelligence." Another makes similar claims. I plan to include these sentiments in the article. — Fishicus (talk) 00:23, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

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) 02:05, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

conservative

According to analysis by Nicolas Pastore, hereditarians tend to be conservative. This section should be expanded considerably.

Steven Pinker in The Blank Slate devotes a chapter to this idea. Peter Singer wrote a book on the subject: Peter Singer, A Darwinian Left, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999. [ISBN 0300083238]. --Rikurzhen 21:06, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

You are more familiar with the texts than I. Feel free to add whatever you consider relevant. I'm merely trying to fill in a lot of gaps contributing to the POV issue so we can get back to race and intelligence at some point with some citations that will balance out the article. That means writing a bunch of biographies and improving the historical overview.

Also took a crack at "middle position," but feel free to clarify that, too. Jokestress 21:15, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

Cool... I'm just leaving notes because I'll forget otherwise. --Rikurzhen 21:19, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah the conservative thing is a lot more complicated than this section makes it out to be, like -Rikurzhen said Chomsky, a social anarchist, could be described as a kind of herditarian because of his universal grammar hypothesis Ultan42 (talk) 23:28, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Pioneer Fund

I changed it from "The controversial Pioneer Fund, established in 1937 is now a leading source of funding for scientists wishing to investigate hereditarian hypotheses." to "The Pioneer Fund, established in 1937 is now a leading source of funding for scientists wishing to investigate hereditarian hypotheses."

The only reason it is controversial is *because* it funds hereditarian research. Readers can always follow the link. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cagliost (talk • contribs) 15:15, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I think controversial should go back in, the reason doesn't make it any less controversial Ultan42 (talk) 23:31, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Unsourced claims about living persons.

A recent edit listed some living persons (including persons with whom I correspond about research) as "hereditarians," in the sense of this article, without citing any source. That is a violation of the Wikipedia policy on biographies of living persons, so I followed the policy, which says, "Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced – whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable – should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." An editor has attempted to reinsert that material into the article, still without any source whatever, and I have accordingly deleted all material from that section that refers to living persons. (Some of the persons named in that section of the article are dead.) Wikipedia core policy on verifiability asks us to come forward with sources to support our edits, especially edits that make statements about living persons, anywhere in the encyclopedia, so please provide sources for all biographical statements in this article. Meanwhile, I will add some source citations to the article for readers who desire to improve the article or to learn more about the article topic. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 13:39, 27 June 2014 (UTC)

As before, if the article is to make a claim about a person being a "notable hereditarian," that claim should come in with a cited source, per WP:BLP, both to show that the person really is a hereditarian, and to show the person's notability. Anyone who is reading the published sources on this article topic actively ought to be able to come up with reliable sources for identifying living persons who have one point of view or another. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 14:44, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

None of the other persons have sources to their names. In case of Murray, the very book he is famous for states they are hereditarians (p. 311). There is also an interview with Murray in Hjernevask. There's also arguably Jonathan Haidt. --Deleet (talk) 08:07, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

You seem not to have noticed that the persons currently linked in that article section are dead and thus not subject to the WP:BLP policy in quite the same way (although it would still be a good idea better to source statements about the point of view of those late writers). If you have now found a reliable source for Murray's statement about Murray's point of view, you should cite that source. (Hint: I have page 311 of Murray's most famous book, as well as the rest of his book, right next to me as I type this, and he doesn't describe his personal position that way on that page of the book.) It's not personal, so you don't have to assume bad faith as you have in your recent edit summaries. Simply find a reliable, secondary source--which is not too much to ask of someone editing an encyclopedia, which is what we are here to build--and there shouldn't be any problem with any edit to that article. Remember, the WP:BLP policy has its own notice board, and fixing BLP statements in articles per BLP policy is a recognized exception to the general policy against edit-warring. Oh, yeah, and the ArbCom case decision reminds all of us that "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources." That's all I'm looking for here. If you are engaged in research, it shouldn't be hard to find a source. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 19:30, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

• Weiji, based on what reasoning do you propose that only one of the authors of the worlds most famous hereditarian book is a hereditarian? One might question the wisdom of having a list of hereditarians, but actually i doubt either Murray or any of the others included would object to such a classification.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:24, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Looking at the edit history of this section of this article will be helpful, Maunus. If any particular person has described himself, or has been described by others, as a hereditarian, well, fine then, let's find a source that says so and mention the exact citation to the source in the article. Someone who wrote a book in 1994 may have changed position in twenty years of further writing. (Looking at page 311 of the cited book, as I did before replying, is also instructive about what is going on here.) -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 20:34, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

propose deletion

I proposed deletion, saying: This page doesn't add anything to the nature v nurture page, and no one is even trying to fix this page's longstanding problems. There is no doctrine of hereditarianism. Some traits are considered mostly heritable and others mostly not.

Hereditarianism isn't a doctrine or a philosophy. Between any two people, their differences might be mostly genetic or mostly environmental, depending on who they are and what trait you're talking about.

Maunus removed the deletion tag. I trust that people will now start improving the page. Jonathan Tweet (talk) 17:46, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

I agree that it is not a "doctrine", but rather something like a perspective or a set of assumptions. But regardless of what it is it exists and is notable and needs an article, I dont think there would be even a small chance that this article would be deleted in an AfD. That is why I removed the proposed deletion tag. I am, however, not going to start working on the page - but doing that would have been a better approach than the prod tag. I found quite a few sources on google scholar, you could use some of them - they all use and discuss the concepts.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 17:54, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

• Mehler, Barry, and J. J. Chambliss. "Heredity and Hereditarianism." Philosophy of Education: An Encyclopedia. Ed. JJ Chambliss. New York: Garland (1996): 260-63.
• Waldman, I. D., Weinberg, R. A., & Scarr, S. (1994). Racial-group differences in IQ in the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study: A reply to Levin and Lynn. Intelligence, 19(1), 29-44.
• Cravens, Hamilton. "A scientific project locked in time: The Terman Genetic Studies of Genius, 1920s–1950s." American Psychologist 47, no. 2 (1992): 183.
• Harwood, Jonathan. "The Race-Intelligence Controversy: A Sociological Approach I-Professional Factors." Social Studies of Science 6, no. 3/4 (1976): 369-394.
• Aljabber, J. M. (2001). Is intelligence influenced by heritability, environmental influences, or both? How is intelligence influenced by these factors?. Science Education.
• Sesardic, N. (2010). Race: a social destruction of a biological concept. Biology & Philosophy, 25(2), 143-162.
• Turkheimer, Eric. "Genetics and human agency: comment on Dar-Nimrod and Heine (2011)." (2011): 825.
• Dobzhansky, T. (1973). Is genetic diversity compatible with human equality?. Social biology, 20(3), 280-288.
• Turkheimer, Eric. "Spinach and Ice Cream: Why_Social Science ls So Difficult." (2004).

Pseudoscience

I’m curious why isn’t Hereditarianism listed under pseudoscience? Transvampire (talk) 15:11, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Per WP:CATV, we need a source for that. The article also is not too clear on what the term actually means. That "nature" plays a role in terms of nature and nurture is not pseudoscience, but some things called hereditarianism may be, especially a "nature-only" perspective. In any case, a source would be needed. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:09, 27 December 2020 (UTC)