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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Our Fragile Intellect (2nd nomination)

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. Editors are free to take normal editorial steps such as merger if they feel it appropriate. Stifle (talk) 12:11, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Our Fragile Intellect

[edit]
AfDs for this article:
Our Fragile Intellect (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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According to Google Scholar, part I or Crabtree's article has been cited 11 times and part II 6 times. A couple of critical rejoinders to Crabtree's article were published in the same journal in 2013 and there were some articles in the popular press about Crabtree's paper, but I don't think that makes this unoriginal and already forgotten dysgenic thesis notable enough to have an article devoted to it. There was a previous deletion discussion a year ago which did not reach consensus, but I think the passage of time has made the topic's lack of notability clear.--Victor Chmara (talk) 12:28, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Everymorning talk 13:20, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nominator. I have a very low threshold for notability for scientific research topics (essentially, I think we should have evidence that multiple independent research groups have studied the topic) but I think the bar for notability for individual papers should be much higher — there are so many research papers published that we should only have articles about the unusually well-known ones, and 17 citations is far from unusual. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:02, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NorthAmerica1000 14:20, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - per nominator. --ceradon (talk • contribs) 14:29, 27 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – In the last RfD there were essentially 3 arguments made about the notability of this paper: (1) It was discussed in about 100 articles in the popular press, reaching a far wider audience than Trends in Genetics. Call this the secular meaning of "notable". (2) GNG notable, in that there was enough RS material to write a substantial article. (3) 17 citations in GS is not enough for an academic paper. Now a year has passed and we are back to argument (3). I think the passage of one year is a rather weak reason, given "once a topic has been the subject of 'significant coverage' in accordance with the general notability guideline, it does not need to have ongoing coverage" (WP:NOTTEMPORARY). It looks like (3) has to stand on its own merits, then and now. Is there a policy for papers that stresses the number of citations? Also it seems that we haven't notified Viriditas, who was the creator and main proponent of arguments (1) and (2). – Margin1522 (talk) 23:23, 28 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: Lack of substantial coverage in multiple reliable independent sources. Topic has received scant notice as of yet within the scientific community. Fails all notability guidelines. Nothing worth saving or merging. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 00:08, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Cunard (talk) 05:40, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. The first AfD close was incorrect, in my opinion, as there was clearly superior arguments presented to keep the article. Nothing has changed since then, and I still think this article should be kept because it was once a notable subject. Notability does not diminish over time. Binksternet (talk) 05:51, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I agree and disagree with Binksternet. The first close was incorrect, yes, but it's because there really isn't a solid rationale for keeping this based on how we traditionally handle these sorts of articles. I don't see what has changed to make me change my mind, either. It just hasn't received the sort of attention we'd want. Thargor Orlando (talk) 12:56, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. There are very substantial independent coverage of this paper, and this passes GNG (how does it "fail all notability guidelines"?!). It is true this has not received much reception in the scientific community, but its sheer GNG notability should be enough to let it stand on its own. ☃ Unicodesnowman (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 13:32, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to Gerald Crabtree. I agree with nom's and David Eppstein's reasoning regarding the independent notability of the topic as a scientific publication. Regarding Margin1522's comment: no, there is no policy or guideline that I know of where citation scores are explicitly used, but there is precedent for using them in AfD debates: a high citation score is a proxy for the availability of supporting or contradicting sources, which can then be inspected individually. Lacking high citation scores, another indicator must be found. I'll repeat my argument from 2013: if the only sources that can be found are news articles, then the publication must be regarded as a news event ("professor publishes controversial theory") and WP:CONTINUEDCOVERAGE applies, as well as WP:NOTTEMPORARY: "brief bursts of news coverage may not be sufficient signs of notability". In this case, all sources are from November 2012, except a column in the FT which fails WP:RS because its author admits to being poorly informed regarding genetics (and betrays a lacking knowledge of ancient history as well), and a single letter to Trends in Genetics. QVVERTYVS (hm?) 13:36, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • How do we distinguish popular press coverage generated by press releases from independent take-up in the professional literature?. I proposed deletion of this article soon after it was posted, because I am part of a journal club that studies current papers on this topic and related topics. The author got a lot of press release support for publicity for a paper that was on a new topic (for him), and there was a brief flurry of mention of the paper in the popular press. A few response articles in scientific journals basically showed how much of the prior literature on the topic the author had missed. The paper that is the subject of the Wikipedia article here is not influential. If the standard for notability for individual articles in the scientific literature is being mentioned in a press release that is taken up by some popular publications, Wikipedia could turn into something like PhysOrg, I suppose. If the standard for notability for individual articles in the scientific literature is being mentioned in reliable, secondary sources edited by scientists on the same topic, then this paper doesn't make the standard. (Meanwhile, dozens of other papers in the topics I research regularly do make the standard, as do quite a few monographs that are absent from Wikipedia.) I guess it's up to the Wikipedia community to decide whether to be a reliable encyclopedia or a press-release digest, but I thought I was here to build an encyclopedia. (After edit, so new time stamp:) Just after posting this, I was visiting an online community for scientific discussion and learned about a United Kingdom National Health Service guide to research scientists about how to get press coverage. It is an ongoing problem in scientific research that some stories are a lot more likely to be covered by the press than others, regardless of genuine scientific importance. I'll share the link here. Your guide to hitting the headlines -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 15:22, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to Gerald Crabtree. I came here from the ping to editors who commented in the previous AfD. Looking at the page as it has come to be now, the "reception" section is entirely about negative receptions in the scientific community, and the "cultural trope" section is basically about this work echoing cultural ideas that preceded it, rather than exerting influence of its own. I agree with Qwertyus that this AfD should evaluate the page as a news event more than as a scientific concept. I do think the topic is interesting and encyclopedic in the context of Crabtree's work, and it seems to me that the biographical page is currently incomplete without it, so a merge would improve that biographical page. But I think that WP:CONTINUEDCOVERAGE points against keeping this standalone page. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:54, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The problem there is that WP is not a news service. See WP:NOTNEWS. Articles are about topics, not about "stories". Another thing to consider is that news outlets have an abysmal record of covering science topics. Journalists, even science journalists, rarely have in-depth familiarity with science topics, and they often misinterpret or get taken by bullshitters and self-promoters because they lack perspective. That's why we assign A LOT more weight to academic sources when creating articles on science topics. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 20:34, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds like you were replying to me, but I am advocating against a standalone page, so perhaps I misunderstand what you mean. Perhaps you were replying to WeijiBaikeBianji? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:46, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Poorly received things can be notable. Criticism is normal and a good sign of notability. -- GreenC 04:40, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Your point about negative reviews not being incompatible with notability is a good one, and it caused me to take a second look. The problem, as I see it, remains however. It's not like the paper generated a large amount of discussion and controversy. For a primary scientific paper, it's not too unusual for there to be some responses from experts saying that it didn't really prove what it claimed to prove. As the "trope" section of the page indicates, the paper simply did not exert a significant impact on the subject, even though it echoed ideas that came before. There are huge numbers of "published science paper"s, and for the most part, they are not notable unless they exert a subsequent influence. Scientists who are notable as persons and have biographical pages here have published many individual journal papers, and we do not normally have pages on each one, even when the work was very important. As for merging, it does seem to be a prominent part of Crabtree's work, so there would be no reason for its coverage after the merge to be too abbreviated. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:22, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to Gerald Crabtree per the above arguments. Viriditas (talk) 20:54, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Passes GNG with flying colors. The only question is why so many would prefer to ignore GNG and delete. The arguments are somewhat reaching IMO ie. a "news event" when it's actually a published science paper, not a news event at all. The nom is based on a special guideline but it still passes GNG. 10 sources +. It could be merged, but it would have to be reduced in size and content will be lost so it's not really a middle road compromise. -- GreenC 04:40, 6 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment High-profile journals and universities with good publicity machines manage turn several new scientific studies, especially ones with supposedly sensational implications, into media events every week in the sense that lots of newspapers and websites will reprint slightly altered versions of the associated press releases (or superficial commentaries thereon). I think it goes against the spirit of policies such as WP:CONTINUEDCOVERAGE, WP:NOTTEMPORARY, WP:ROUTINE, and WP:NOTSCANDAL to turn this clickbait material into Wikipedia articles. Crabtree's article is an excellent example of this kind of study: devoid of scientific interest, but intensely publicized for a brief period of time because of its "bold" claims and intense PR efforts.--Victor Chmara (talk) 08:47, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Week keep – I think this has been a good discussion that has made a lot of good points about the handling of scientific papers in the popular press. I agree with those points and mostly with the policy reasons for downgrading the article. Basically I am OK with merging it to Gerald Crabtree. But my concern (per GreenC) is that bringing over enough of it would overwhelm that article in terms of his overall career. Was it really that important in the course of his career? It seems like there would be problems with WP:DUE and WP:ARTICLESIZE. In terms of WP:DUE, I think it might be better add a sentence or two about this paper to his article and just leave this article as is, as what it is – a media event, a kind of footnote to a long-standing cultural debate. – Margin1522 (talk) 22:33, 10 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I keep having trouble with the idea that a merge would cause a due weight problem at the bio page, but the material is still notable as a standalone page. If it really is notable, then due weight would justify significant coverage at the bio page, and if that would not be justified, then the notability here is suspect. In the event of a merge, I think one could reasonably omit the "cultural trope" section, since none of it is really about the impact of the paper. One could also summarize and greatly shorten the "reception" section. Doing that, it would not at all overwhelm the bio page. Also, other sections of the bio page could reasonably be expanded.
I think there is a good chance that this AfD is heading towards "no consensus". In that event, editors who favor merging or deleting might want to consider that a merge does not require an AfD discussion. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:50, 11 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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