Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Evolutionary argument against naturalism

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 and edit away the OR. El_C 07:36, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Evolutionary argument against naturalism

Page is the result of original research reading like a master's thesis. On top of that, it is already covered here and makes this look more like an unnecessary PoV fork. ju66l3r 17:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Warning: I just noticed that this page was put in the wrong AfD category. Philosophy-inclined wikipedians would be much better suited to evaluate the real relevance of the article. This is not an article about "science and technology". --Leinad ¬ »saudações! 22:54, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I can't find an appropriate category; there should be something like "humanities." I am concerned that a philosophical argument is being dismissed because science-oriented Wikipedians fault philosophy's methodology. I find fault with philosophy's methodology, too, but I think that philosophical arguments should be evaluated using the tools of philosophy. I have asked for comments on this issue here, at the main AFD talk page. Lamont A Cranston 12:34, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Recatted to 'S', society topics (which includes humanities) per WT:AFD. You could always change the cat to '?' (nominator unsure) if you aren't sure where it should go. --ais523 10:28, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete, perhaps merging anything useful into the other article mentioned. It definitely reads like OR.Edward Wakelin 18:06, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. The article is not OR. It is sourced and presents a philosopher's argument that has attracted enough attention to warrant a book rebutting the argument (Naturalism Defeated?). I agree that the argument is poor, but there needs to be an article, because currently Metaphysical naturalism, Alvin Plantinga, and Critique of atheism each deal with this argument separately. At Critique of atheism we reached more-or-less consensus that this argument needed to be moved from that article, and a new article is the best place for it. Lamont A Cranston 18:23, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  • The Alvin Plantinga article is the best place for it. Too much prominence for a faulty idea based on thinly stretched premices. `'mikka (t) 20:02, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. In the Critique of atheism the consensus was that it didn't belong in it's entirety there, but the dispute of it's actual existance was nowhere near settled. It has been said in the Critique of Atheism discussion that according to Plantinga's website this paper is unpublished, and therefore has not received a peer review. That coupled with the article presenting his views as undisputed fact, and the fact that these views can raise quite a few eyebrows and looks like a wedge issue for advocates of Intelligent Design (which is actually compatible with Plantinga's background), makes this article seem less informative, more like it's fullfilling an agenda. The use of secondary sources to refer to such a polemical subject is frowned to within guidelines, and given the fact that the paper is unpublished this maybe beyond repair. NPOV and RS issues aside. I would say epistemologists would agree that the importance is not in the arguments themselves, but in the debate, and that is not presented at all here. It should be recognized that he argues evolution is only possible if it is guided by a supernatural being, and therefore this is purely a philosophical argument for intelligent design, as far as I can see, if this belongs anywhere, it's in the ID article and presented as such. And as for Lamont's concerns above, maybe the deletion of this article is the precedent needed so other articles dont need to deal with this at all. Whether that is established or not, future edits should converge those articles' mentions of this argument linking to this one.Starghost (talk | contribs) 19:35, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
  • I removed my previous vote, and am currently indifferent. I guess this argument is bound to resurface, or at least I believe it will be mentioned in Wikipedia in one form or another (it would be too long before editors would cede ground and give up on this argument on the other pages anyway). As some concerns are being adressed, such as the criticisms to the argument, I believe in time it may earn the right to a dignified existance. It is related published books and all, and we got plenty of other published crap anyway, so what the hell. Starghost (talk | contribs) 21:24, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
• del. Covered in Alvin Plantinga article. It is Alvin's nonnotable and logically faulty original research. Good whed describing Alvin's views, but generally nonencyclopedic. There are zillions of various philosophical arguments for each philosophical issue by various philosophers, but unless it is duscussed by wide community, is is original research. Wikipedia is not a media for publication of original ideas, it is for reports about discussions of them. `'mikka (t) 19:56, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. The argument is published at least in this book, and maybe in other places too. Also, the argument is considered notable enough "in the real world" to deserve a published collection of academic essays replying to it (see: [1]). --Leinad ¬ »saudações! 22:23, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I echo Leinad & Lamont's reasons. And, for the record, I created the page. Gabrielthursday 22:38, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. The content on this page is already included in other articles. I see no need to create a spinout. Leave as a redirect page to Plantinga.--Andrew c 01:13, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Note: The above statement was true when Andrew made the comment, but it is not true anymore. It is important to notice that the article was nominated for deletion as soon as it was created - giving no time for the text to be developed at all before all the above comments were made. --Leinad ¬ »saudações! 21:40, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete as POV fork per nom. I think that the keep arguments address the OR charge successfully, because I think the OR charge is a misguided interpretation of WP:OR. But none of the keep arguments address the charge that this is a POV fork from Metaphysical naturalism. Plantinga's argument deserves to be in Metaphysical naturalism, but it doesn't deserve its own article. Pan Dan 01:51, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Regarding the alleged PoV fork, I should think the fact that the article is a result of a rough consensus by opposing views on the merits of the argument would indicate that it is not. In discussion at Critique of atheism a number of points were made, including the fact that it needs to be expanded, as it is a quite technical and intricate argument. As such, it would overwhelm the Alvin Plantinga page. Moreover, since when do significant ideas go on their discoverer/postulator's articles? Meme isn't under Richard Dawkins, nor Deconstruction under Jacques Derrida. As for the relevance of the EAAN to metaphysical naturalism, it has the same problem we ran into in Critique of Atheism- it isn't a disproof of naturalism per se, but rather naturalism in conjunction with evolution.
  • Lastly, I think it is somewhat incumbent on the community to consider, if not defer to, the deliberations of the editors that led to the creation of the article, which may be found here. Gabrielthursday 05:20, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
    • I think that having an extended discussion of it at Metaphysical naturalism is a mistake because the argument is not about naturalism per se, and it is distracting there. Plantinga's argument is not about naturalism or evolution, it is about the two combined. He says that Naturalism in conjunction with belief in evolution renders the premises that underly the two beliefs unreliable. Putting the argument in Alvin Plantinga is not appropriate - for some reason, other philosophers take his argument seriously. As I pointed out earlier, there is a published book criticising his argument (and with his responses). If professional philosophers take the argument seriously and debate it on its merits, there is no reason to conflate the argument with its proponent (I also second Gabrielthursday's comments on this issue). Lamont A Cranston 12:28, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
      • So, is the article still pending expansion? I can understand content-forking if there is too much to be said that cannot be covered in other articles. But as it stands, the content is largely redundent with existing pages, and is NOT expanded.--Andrew c 13:32, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
        • I think there is enough here to justify the article. The fact that two other articles want to discuss the argument (rather than the philosopher) justifies the article. Lamont A Cranston 13:38, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
        • Hi, Andrew, I second Lamont's and Gabriel's comments. In addition, the article (that was created yesterday) is already larger than many stub-pages in Wikipedia (*update: as in 21:46, 7 October 2006, the text is now considerably larger than it was when Andrew made his last comment). There is continuing philosophical debate around the argument, but the critique section in the page is still based on comments from only one of the already existing critical reviews... There is certainly room for further expansion, not only of the criticism section, but also of the main argument. --Leinad ¬ »saudações! 14:28, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Even though the position is very thinly leveraged sophistry. If I reject epiphenomenalism then there is nothing left. But this article is better and more thought provoking than 90% of the crufty crud we are voting on. Edison 21:11, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Argument has an entire book written about it and is highly notable. Description of argument was previously at Plantinga biography and at criticisms of atheism; new location is better. — goethean ॐ 13:51, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
• Merge to Alvin Plantinga unless a source is given that (1) other philosphers use (or would, at least, recognize) the arguement from the name of the article, and (2) other philosophers take it seriously. Neither is present at the moment. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 22:26, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep (or Merge) - the article discusses a notable authority's opinions of a given subject, and so the material presented is entirely suitable for inclusion. Martin 12:43, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
• Borderline keep. The reasons for deletion are not valid. The article is not POV as it is balanced with criticism, and the page does is not duplicated elsewhere now. EAAN seems to have been fairly widely discussed in the field (my personal view is the argument has a huge hole, evolution does select for rational thought, but thats my POV) Poujeaux 14:11, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
• Changing my opinion to Keep as a legitimate spinout. I have previously misunderstood what a POV fork really is. As to WP:OR, as I said above, that charge is misguided. That policy forbids Wikipedians from inserting their own original research, not from inserting the original research of others. As to notability, the proponents of this article have shown that Plantinga's argument has elicited wide discussion in the philosophical community. Finally, this article should not be deleted even if Plantinga's argument is "logically faulty" (as one editor says above). Using that criterion we would have to delete Ontological argument. We keep or delete philosophical arguments based on notability of the argument and verifiability that the argument has been made, not actual merit of the argument. Pan Dan 16:38, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I have just added some text on the form that the argument took in a C.S.Lewis book. I had previously removed this material from an earlier version of the text when it was in the Alvin Plantinga article, as it was off-topic for that article. This Lewis material can be expanded upon. The article should thus not be merged with Alvin Plantinga. — goethean ॐ 16:49, 11 October 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.