Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unsolved problems in medicine

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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 Keep all. Properly sourced "unsolved problems" pages in other disciplines provide evidence that maintaining these rigorously is both encyclopedic and beneficial to scholarship. Xoloz 17:57, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unsolved problems in medicine

Listcruft. Hopelessly POV/OR exercises in free association. wikipediatrix 23:41, 10 August 2006 (UTC) I am also bundling these related articles into the nomination:

...for the same reasons. wikipediatrix 23:52, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Keep. All of these articles could be improved and modified to include citations. The fact that they have been put up for deletion with no honest attempt made to ask for references is troubling. What can be done when vandals take over the library and become the librarians? I have moved these articles to another wiki that respects human knowledge and the search for new knowledge. I will also copy them into Wikiversity as soon as it opens. Request to Wikipedia's deletionists: the next time you get bored and start throwing out articles that are important for the Wikimedia Foundation's mission, please think about donating them to Wikiversity. --JWSchmidt 00:39, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I'll ignore your intimation that bringing these to AfD is a form of vandalism... I think it's common sense that what exactly constitutes a "problem" is completely subjective. The article is based on a POV/OR violation from the getgo. It's not just that these articles are atrociously written (which they are) and not just that they're filled with questions which violate WP:OR because some editor is basically the one asking the questions in the article, like "Can we someday perform a brain transplant?". I could riff on these articles all night long and think of hundreds more questions like "Can we someday regenerate severed limbs?" and "Can we someday spontaneously generate a third bionic eye that is capable of sending and receiving text messages?" This parlor game of free-association regarding such "unsolved problems" in question form has no parameters and thus no end. wikipediatrix 20:37, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


  • Keep and clean up as to include only sourced questions, i.e. one must be able to cite an article that says something like: "This is an important open problem in field X". -- Koffieyahoo 01:12, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete. The current articles are xxxxxx and it is far from clear clear (and even impossible to define) what belongs there. If it means "everything what is currently explored" then the list must be thousands of times as long and any selection would be NPOV. What means "unsolved"? We cannot know anything in all its facettes and every detail - does that make everything "unsolved"?. That you can formulate an "unsolved" problem is only possible if you know so many details of it that you can no longer call it "unsolved". I have the strong feeling that these can never become real articles. Cacycle 02:37, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Definite keep (speaking only for the chemistry section) These lists are essential for proper understanding of these sciences. Please note elaborations & references etc. are maintained on the secondary pages and not in the list itself. I crossed out some improper language, you have to assume editors are in good faith. V8rik 15:21, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
How is a list of vague questions like "What are the chemical origins of life?" considered "essential for proper understanding"?? And you do realize, don't you, that questions like "How can one design and make an effective catalyst for any desired reaction?" is so vague and open-ended, one might as well make the whole article a lot shorter and simply ask "When can mankind solve all unsolved problems?", which would be no more or less edifying. wikipediatrix 20:37, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
    • We now have 13 unsolved problems in chemistry, 7 of which with their own article with (importantly) relevant citations. The intro clearly states that the list should not include how-to problems. I understand that the concept of unsolved problems is poorly defined but I guess that whenever more than one theory tries to explain the same phenomenon you have an unsolved problem. I think the only issue is with Medicine, at first glance limited to howto's but not addressing the fundamental issues. V8rik 16:10, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep all. As per above.-PlasmaDragon 17:05, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete all without prejudice to later sourced recreation. As it is, with zero sources, WP:RS and WP:NOR alone mandate deletion. How else are we to ascertain that these problems are indeed unsolved and relevant? Sandstein 07:23, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep all It's a good list, and likely to be found - good material for school-grade projects. Mugaliens 18:29, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete all respectfully in disagreement with the above - these are terrible lists. No effort has been made to establish the foundations of how such problems are identified, nor the criteria by whcih inclusion couldbe judged. Not just listcruft, witless listcruft. Eusebeus 21:45, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep all Interesting and relevant to the fields. Should be cleaned up to add sources, but there is no need for deletion. -Interested2 23:37, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep all Unanswered/unanswerable questions are some of the most significant attractions to any field. I concur that the articles should be cleaned up for sources, but deletion is not the answer. --Ezratrumpet 02:38, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Strong keep all - Because wikipediatrix didn't even try to fix the lists, nor request a fix, I do not believe this nomination was made in good faith. --Trinity Skyward 16:17, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Why would I try to fix them? I don't think they should exist at all. The fundamental idea of random lists of "problems" violates WP:OR and WP:NPOV from the outset. Therefore, there is no possible fix. wikipediatrix 16:20, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete all. I have been troubled by wikipediatrix's zeal to delete and denounce articles, but these are essentially random lists. The economics article is particularly problematic because several of the "problems" are merely political footballs. Gazpacho 18:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Your personal opinion of my "zeal" is irrelevant here and borders on WP:NPA. FYI, most of the articles I nominate for deletion do indeed end up being deleted, so it sounds like you have a problem with the consensus of the Wikipedia community in general, which is who ultimately makes the final decision, not I alone. wikipediatrix 23:28, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
I disagree. His being troubled by your zeal to delete is entirely relevant, seeing as you were the nominator of these articles, and is certainly not a personal attack - it's his opinion. A personal attack would be "you delete perfectly good stuff". He's saying "you delete things a bit more that I would". Furthermore, I find your noting of WP:NPA to be very interesting - although it may or may not be so, it appears to be to be an intimidation tactic. -Interested2 02:17, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Whatever. I am not on trial here. The articles are. wikipediatrix 02:31, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Opinion regarding someone's usual practice is not a personal attack, particularly when that person agrees with your position. --Ezratrumpet 09:42, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Rediculously Obvious Keep - the literature is full of verifiable ...remains an open problem... - the suggestion that it's POV or OR is completely unsupportable. WilyD 19:45, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm glad it's so obviously "rediculous" [sic] to you. Maybe you can explain why you think "problem" is NOT a subjective (that means "matter of opinion") term? What constitutes a "problem"? Seriously. And since these articles are filled with open-ended free-association loaded questions, (some are almost as bad as the old Groucho Marx loaded question "Do you still beat your wife?") how can you deny that unsourced questions that wonder if mankind will ever achieve certain things are anything but speculation, and therefore POV/OR? wikipediatrix 21:13, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, because there are verifiable, citable sources at to what is or isn't an unsolved problem in a field. If a specific question is unverified, then it can be excised, but the overall article is fine, and This article needs some editing is not a criterion for deletion. WilyD 21:23, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
There are unsolved problems in every field that when solved, will advance knowledge in that field to a new level. Division by zero comes to mind as an example. Lists of those questions are attractive to the intellectually curious. The articles might do well to add "previously unsolved questions" and note how those solutions advanced human knowledge. --Ezratrumpet 09:37, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I really think that user wikipediatrix should stop arguing that the chemistry unsolved problems are unreferenced. At least the articles On water reaction, Enzyme#Kinetics, homochirality, Asymmetric induction, Bond_rotation_barrier to which the unsolved problems refer have discussion and ample references. I am not prepared to invest more time in the article as long as this business continues although I have new articles and unsolved problems in preparation (Superatoms and tunneling effects in the Kinetic isotope effect) Also I object to the bundling of different articles , why mathematics is not listed and chemistry is I do not know and the poor quality of the medicine article is not my concern . Also the deletion discussion should end after 5 days and we are now living in day 6. Why not have an improve tag and move on? I am considering making Unsolved problems in chemistry a Wikipedia:Chemistry Collaboration of the Month if that helps V8rik 22:09, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
    • It's not a big deal - since no valid arguments for deletion have been presented, these encyclopaedically necessary topics are plenty safe. WilyD 03:57, 17 August 2006 (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.
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