Talk:Robert Plomin

Absolute biological determinism?
"Robert Plomin (1948–) is an American-British behavior geneticist who advocates an absolutist version of biological determinism and eugenics."

That's just a transparent lie. 82.9.95.115 (talk) 13:40, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Libel
Suggest you do not libel the eminent Robert Plomin. 82.132.212.126 (talk) 00:29, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
 * How is it libel? When you attempted to whitewash the article you wrote the exact same thing, just with different wording. 19:47, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Never mentioning race?
"Plomin practices racial inexplicitness, the tactic of advancing racist policies without directly mentioning race."

Not true, see e.g. this interview with german weekly DIE ZEIT: https://www.zeit.de/2015/23/intelligenz-vererbung-iq-robert-plomin/komplettansicht

(deepl-translation)

ZEIT: Doesn't your approach rather play into the hands of all those who say we'll do it like in the past: Educate the best, forget about the rest?

Plomin: I am a member of the Labour Party. I see it quite differently, and not only for social reasons, but also for economic reasons. It's foolish to believe that you only need a few geniuses to invent Google or YouTube, and that it's enough for everyone else to be able to use the technologies. In our technologically advanced societies, economic success depends on a very broad base of well-educated people. For that reason alone, all students must be taken care of. The greatest untapped intellectual potential is likely to be in socially disadvantaged families. For children from such environments, we need free and qualified preschool education, at the latest from the age of two.

[...]

ZEIT: If the intelligence quotient (IQ) is the best predictor of success at school: Aren't people right then who say that migrant children with poor grades are less intelligent?

Plomin: No, they are not right. Individual differences in IQ can be highly hereditary; at the same time, the difference between migrants and natives can be entirely due to the environment. For example, because of their origin, migrants only get bad jobs, they attend worse schools and are discriminated against in other ways. Whether, for example, ethnic groups differ genetically in their average abilities is not something we can investigate at all.

ZEIT: Why not? Just compare twins in both groups.

Plomin: That's pointless. We can measure the hereditary part of IQ differences within one group and also that in another. But what do we see? In socially disadvantaged children, the genetic share is always lower than in children from affluent families. This means that children from poor families are not able to realize their genetic potential at all because of their living conditions. So a comparison is misleading. That's why there's so much heat and so little light in this debate.

ZEIT: So genes have nothing to do with social status?

Plomin: Yes, they do. Among people with high socioeconomic status, highly intelligent men and women are clearly overrepresented. It's just that they don't form an ethnic group, but are an expression of a stratification of society brought about by education. We are now investigating this fact with a new method that tells us how similar the genetic information is between two people. When we relate our results to the socioeconomic status of the family, the IQ of their children, and their educational success, the results confirm our research with twins. There is simply a genetic component that helps determine social status."

--2A04:4540:6A06:E300:B01C:3CBE:7125:CAE1 (talk) 17:11, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Deleting this article
Plomin is not a racist or a so-called "genetic determinist". The article from this argument is that since he believes academic outcomes and IQ are a product largely of genetics that he is therefore a white supremacist/racist. This is ridiculous. Plomin is correct that genes and IQ are highly correlated, and it's the scientific consensus that IQ is 60-80% heritable in adulthood. This is not some "far right, Nazi" viewpoint. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Estimates It's been validated by many studies and the author of this article is pushing a fringe viewpoint. Additionally, Plomin has never acknowledge the existence of "races" as a genetic category. He said, as another user mentioned above ironically,: "Plomin: No, they are not right. Individual differences in IQ can be highly hereditary; at the same time, the difference between migrants and natives can be entirely due to the environment. For example, because of their origin, migrants only get bad jobs, they attend worse schools and are discriminated against in other ways. https://www.zeit.de/2015/23/intelligenz-vererbung-iq-robert-plomin/komplettansicht."

Whoever made this article is trying to conflate the idea that IQ is highly linked to genetics (which is empirically demonstrated and the consensus) with racism and white nationalism. This is a fallacy because it has nothing to do with racism. Even if you think it's wrong or somehow immoral, it's not a racist doctrine. The fact that white nationalists ALSO believe IQ has a substantial genetic contribution is irrelevant. That's the association fallacy. Plomin does not believe in Race and IQ differences, therefore he is not a racist.

Also the scientist Nisbett (who has challenged race realists Rushton and Lynn on many occassions https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22963424/) has said "Expert estimates suggest that anywhere between 30 and 80 percent of the variation in IQ scores is determined by genetic factors, with 50 to 60 percent being the most commonly accepted range". Nisbett has been fighting against "race and iq" researchers for decades.

Hsu is not the leader of China's eugenicist program and this is irrelevant. I believe Rushton (a race realist scientist) and Flynn (antiracist researcher) collaborated on some papers together in the day. Working together on a paper with a "eugenicist" doesn't make Plomin a racist, if Hsu even if a eugenicist (the claim that he is the leader of China's eugenicist program is totally unsupported). Even if it was true, which the article linked has NOT demonstrated, that's guilt by association.

Plomin is an accredited scientist (who has received awards from the American Psychological Association and many other scientific associations, as well as numerous fellowships, and is professor of behavioral genetics at Kings College London) who has written textbooks on genetics that I read in university. The entire attack on him is fallacious and ill-supported in my honest opinion. If nobody can justify this, then I insist that this article be deleted as in my opinion there is nothing that can be salvaged in it. 2603:9001:300:81A:ED99:53D6:6B41:11A3 (talk) 03:28, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * It's a crap article with questionable content, of only a few lines. Unless someone is going to rewrite it I agree with deleting. Ernor (talk) 13:11, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * It's reasonable to call for a vote on deleting this article. It has not really changed much in 4 years despite many edits; it's a stub of poor quality. Bongolian (talk) 18:18, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Some changes
I am making some changes to the article such as removing the hereditarian claim and clarifying some other things, since it links to RW's article on Racial IQ differences and between-group heritability. Does anyone disagree with me doing so? Plomin may be a "hereditarian" in other definitions, but he isn't a hereditarian per RW's article. 2603:9001:300:81A:20C3:50AE:4E14:E95B (talk) 15:49, 1 May 2023 (UTC) What is the basis of the claim that Hsu is the head of Chinas eugenicist program? 2603:9001:300:81A:20C3:50AE:4E14:E95B (talk) 16:34, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Is there any chance you could make edits to the Jonathan Anomaly page and rewrite it? it faces same issues as the old plomin. 216.238.112.103 (talk) 23:50, 1 May 2023 (UTC)


 * I may review your changes to the Plomin page at a later date, though it would require deeper reading of his work. One thing that catches my eye is claiming that Plomin never endorsed the Bell Curve's stance on race, despite the fact he signed the WSJ letter. If he changed his stance that's one thing, but to say he never held a different stance is another. Chillpilled (talk) 14:31, 3 May 2023 (UTC)