Response by "sagkyndigt udvalg til bedømmelse af Helmuth Nyborgs forskningsprojekt vedrørende kønsforskelle i intelligens" to the comments of Helmuth Nyborg, sent to the committee by letter of May 11, 2006.

In the above mentioned letter the Dean emphasizes that

Vedrørende sag em, faktuelle oplysninger henholder fakultetet sig fortsat til den sagsfremstilling, der ligger til grund for udvalgsarbejdet

and that on this basis

Udvalget anmodes om at tage stilling til, om Helmuth Nyborgs bemærkninger til rapporten giver udvalget anledning til at ændre rapportens konklusioner

The short answer is: No, we have no changes in our conclusions. For completeness, however, we go through Nyborg's comments below, adding our observations where relevant.

1.1.1/1

It is unclear if Nyborg makes this comment because the report of the committee has given him new insight, or if the comment reflects a knowledge that Nyborg has had all the time. In the latter case it is a serious neglect not giving this information to the head of the department and to the dean of the faculty.

1.1.1/2

Nyborg mentions that drop out is a common problem in longitudinal studies. Yes, but whether or not it is common, it is an important source of bias and it is universally recognized that this cannot be ignored in any serious scientific analysis and interpretation. The information in appendix 1 of Nyborgs comments is given in Section 4 af the report, and therefore not new to the committee.

1.1.1/3

This calls for no comments.

1.1.2

The comments made by Nyborg here seem to have been given also to the Committee for Good Scientific Practice and therefore formed the background for their conclusion. What we did in the report was to also refer to point 5 in Vejledende Retningslinier for Forskningsetik i Samfundsvidenskaberne from the Danish Social Science Research Council.

1.1.2/1

This is not a question of space, this is a question of whether or not the reader shold be informed about the problems in the data.

1.1.2/2

Concerning the last comment and the use of references we refer to the report of the Committee for Good Scientific Practice.

1.1.3/1

This calls for no comments.

1.1.3/2

This calls for no comments.

1.1.3/3

The only new information here is that apparently an orthogonal transformation (varimax) is made before the oblique rotation. There is no information on the oblique rotation used.

1.1.3/4

The identifiability problem cannot be qualified. One cannot tell if an observed difference is due to the secondary factor or due to the primary factors. That an algorithm is robust is not an answer to this problem.

1.2.1/1

It suffices to refer to appendix 1 of Nyborgs comments to see that the data collection stopped in 1995.

1.2.1/2

Repetition.

1.2.1/3

Repetition.

1.2.1/4

This calls for no comments.

1.2.1/5

This calls for no comments.

1.2.1/6

Repetition.

1.2.2/1

Repetition.

1.2.2/2

Repetition.

5

This calls for no comments.

6

This calls for no comments.

Appendix 1

See 1.1.1/2 above.

Appendix 2

See 1.1.3/4 above.

Aarhus May 19, 2006,

Jan-Eric Gustafsson   Jens Ledet Jensen   Niels Keiding