Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Retracted article on neurotoxicity of ecstasy

This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Keep, or someone else may Merge. The article will stay as is. Redwolf24 22:42, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Retracted article on neurotoxicity of ecstasy

Non-encyclopedic article on a retraction made by the journal Science. The poor opening sentence: "This article concerns problems with a paper, 'Severe dopaminergic neurotoxicity in primates after a common recreational dose regimen of MDMA ("ecstasy")' that appeared in the leading journal Science, treated as a case study in scientific method." The article certainly presents a good "case study in scientific method," but its not encyclopedic, and studies an incident of marginal notability.

• Delete, per my nomination. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 06:29, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, the article may be in bad shape, but that doesn't mean it has to be deleted. We can delete it only if the article can't be improved to encyclopedic standards. -- Sundar ^{\talk \contribs} 07:22, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, I think the topic is notable and informational and at the article can at the very least can be fixed. I would encourage more people to mark articles for cleanup that need improving. At least 10 users have taken the time to add to this article since its creation in May 2004. Thane Eichenauer 10:04, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
• Merge, a shortend version would add to the ecstasy article.--nixie 10:06, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
• Merge per Petaholmes/nixie. And as tragically named as it is, no one will ever actually find it here. It'll do better in the ecstasy article. Nandesuka 12:37, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
  • It is linked from Ecstasy (drug). Pilatus 16:04, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
• Merge to E article. Sdedeo 12:44, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
• Merge as per above. --Several Times 14:32, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep The incident is notorious enough, and this article doesn't fit in that well with Ecstasy (drug). Pilatus 16:04, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
• Comment. Quite a lot of the information in this article is already present within the Ecstacy (drug) article here, but the title of the sub-section doesn't emphasise this. Sliggy 20:49, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Trollderella 01:24, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
• Merge into Ecstasy (drug). Alphax ^τεχ 03:13, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
• Merge: The title is unsearchable. The material is worth keeping, but errors and retractions are just a reality of the scientific method - not notable in and of itself. Peter Grey 15:45, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment George Ricaurte, the author of the study had come under fire before for questionable research methodology. This entry (it's heading is clunky, anyone come up with a better title) is not merely a study of the scientific method but also a well-referenced article on scientific misconduct. Pilatus 15:58, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
• Merge with George A. Ricaurte: I've done some work on scientific misconduct, and I believe the subject has a lot of potential. We have quite a few articles on scientists that are only notable for their link from scientific misconduct. Rl 17:19, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

• Keep This is an interesting article about how the scientific method can ferret out incorrect results and it shows that even Science can publish bad research (that shouldn't come as much of a surpirse to anyone who has tried to repeat the experiments in an "old" Science paper (by old, I mean before supplementary materials were made available electronically). However, I do not see how it qualifies as scientific misconduct. Is there an NIH investigation going on? Did Ricaurte intentionally switch vials? Was he working for a pharma that would benefit from his article? It sounds like shoddy book keeping on the part of Ricaurte's lab and/or the MDMA supplier, but is there an accusation of intentionally falsifying results? Where is the misconduct? srlasky 18:28, August 18, 2005 (UTC)

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.