Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Frozen plasticity

Frozen plasticity

Frozen plasticity (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

This "hypothesis" is highly theoretical (polite way of saying that it was proposed in a highly obscure journal full of biological crackpottery and no one knows about it). A lit search brings up nothing, and "frozen plasticity" gets a grand total of 82 real Google hits. (Far less than my own obscure personal name.) Completely non-notable and unknown to the scientific community. Reads like an article for someone shamelessly plugging their own forgotten hypothesis. Bueller 007 (talk) 08:31, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: I came here expecting an article on novel phases of materials, like some type of "liquid-metal" and was disappoiunted to find an evolution article as I would like to think many of these features could be replaced with equations and systems theory. In any case, these are the scirus hits, and there are a few that seem materials related but most seem to be to dictionaries or author's own work, but check for yourself as I can't form an opinion yet,
  • http://www.scirus.com/srsapp/search?q=%22frozen+plasticity%22+evolution&t=all&drill=yes&sort=1&p=0
• Obscure, out of favor, or speculative alone shouldn't invalidate inclusion based on notability but obviously you'd like to see some peer recognition, even if out right rebuttal.

  Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 11:55, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. -- TexasAndroid (talk) 12:17, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
• Keep the given references are verifiable and reliable. The notion of highly obscure journal or unknown to the scientific community when formulated so, are nonsense when reliable and verifiable sources are referred Rirunmot (talk) 13:01, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment As a member of the scientific community relevant to this article, I can assure you that this "hypothesis" is absolutely unknown, as the Google image hits suggest. 82 Google hits does not merit inclusion in Wikipedia. The references given (e.g. Flegr 1998) have been cited only twice in the literature since the "hypothesis" was introduced 11 years ago. Both of those citations were in the same journal as the original article ("Rivista di Biologia/Biology Forum"), which regularly publishes cook/beyond-the-fringe material that the rest of the scientific community has rejected (such as telepathy and creationism). No one bothers to read that journal, because most scientists don't even know it exists. (It has the lowest eigenfactor of any biology journal and the second lowest Impact Factor.) An idea should not be excluded from Wikipedia merely because it's pseudoscientific, and that's not what I'm arguing. What I'm saying is, no scientists know this hypothesis exists, this hypothesis is non-notable. Bueller 007 (talk) 16:26, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment : I would take issue with your comment regarding the sources cited in the article. For example, if the only known reference appears in Nature, that may seem highly regarded but yet it could appear as an advertisement or, more realistically, as a self-promotional opinion piece ( say it was a citation to the wall street journal but the page cited was opinion or blog). This requires a closer look. Obscure is fine but it needs consideration from peers, even if passing. Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 13:24, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
  • It is content that is verifiable, not sources. The concept of verifiability does not apply to sources. It applies to the content that is based upon them. Sources must be reliable, and part of that is being peer reviewed and published. M. Flegr's own book is not the best of peer-reviewed sources for a scientific hypothesis. For that, we need to look at articles published in academic journals. As such M. Flegr's article in Rivista di Biologia, a peer-reviewed journal, is better in terms of reliability.

    Reliability of the sources supports our requirement that content be properly verifiable from good sources. There is still a slight hurdle of the point that this might be a novel hypothesis that has simply failed to far to gain any traction in the world at large outside of its author, our Wikipedia:No original research requirement.

    As was not properly clear from the original article, but as Nerdseeksblonde points out above, all of the sources are M. Flegr xyrself, and it's difficult to find sources by other people where Flegr's ideas are acknowledged. However, this is an identifiable credentialed expert, a professor in the Faculty of Science at Charles University in Prague, publishing (in one case, at least) in a peer-reviewed journal. It is not an uncredentialed unidentifiable person publishing under a pseudonym on Usenet. So the problems of general acknowledgement and acceptance of the concept and its incorporation into the corpus of human knowledge are not as clear cut in this instance as they are in other cases. Uncle G (talk) 13:51, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

As I understand the wiki criteria, notability doesn't allow exceptions for author's credentials and indeed that would be advocating that wiki become a soapbox for established approved authors prior to getting a hearing in secondary sources. I am not advocating acceptance on those criteria, just confessing I haven't bothered to look for positive evidence. Nerdseeksblonde (talk) 14:27, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment. At present, I cannot begin to judge the suitability of the subject, but I would observe that the citations make it appear to be one man's theory. I'd flag this for expert attention and ask for help at the biology project. The title does appear to be less than satisfactory, given that the hypothesis is not well known, and I also expected this to be about plastic materials. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 14:28, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
• Delete or merge. This single-author-sourced POV fork is a fringe theory. It may warrant inclusion in an article such as evolution, but it may even there be WP:UNDUE. Bongomatic 15:09, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Not in evolution, that deals with mainstream science, this hypothesis is so obscure that it has not a hope of qualifying for a mention in the main article. Tim Vickers (talk) 16:17, 24 June 2009 (UTC)