Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Just-so story

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 of the debate was no consensus. Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 04:37, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Just-so story

This article claims that this term is used in anthropology, psychology, biology. Except it really isn't, and wouldn't be used in serious peer-reviewed work, as is implied. If a argument can be made against a hypothesis on theoretical grounds, fair enough, that is acceptable, but an assertion that something is "just a story", so is basically a form of the argument from incredulity. This is thus original research, and has been the target of some creationist POV pushing by DLH (talk · contribs · logs · block user · block log). — Dunc|☺ 20:55, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. I remembered this term from Intro to Psychology, and was kind of surprised that the nominator claimed that it wouldn't be used in those fields. If I may point out some examples of serious use in these fields: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]. Given the nominator's activity in Wikproject: Evolutionary Biology, I'm surprised he's unfamiliar with this term. Captainktainer * Talk 21:43, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, although the article as it stands may need a better sourcing of some of the statements.. I don't know about usages in anthropology and related fields, but it is a term used in children's literature, as a sort of genericized form of Roald Dahl's Rudyard Kipling's book of the same title. Joyous! | Talk 21:56, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and expand pretty common term in critiques of evolutionary hypotheses, and I don't mean creationists either. Dawkins, Pinker, and Gould have all used it or responded to it in their popular science work. Opabinia regalis 23:13, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Google Scholar lists:

286 for "Just-so story" Gould; 542 for "Just-so stories" Gould; 247 for "Just-so story" Dawkins; 367 for "Just-so story" Dawkins; 215 for "Just-so story" Pinker; 280 for "Just-so stories" Pinker; DLH 02:50, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

• Er, that's Rudyard Kipling who wrote the book, not Roald Dahl -- and that articles includes "Scientific critiques often label as a Just-so story fanciful descriptions of evolutionary origin naratives in evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology which fit the current facts but have not mechanistic basis or evidence." Oh, and keep. BuckRose 00:08, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per above. SM247^{My Talk} 00:10, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - while it's a term you hear in common speech, in discussions or in a class, is it any more encyclopaedic than "arm waving"/"arm-waving"? What's a reliable source for this article? If it purports to be a scientific term, where is it used in the literature? Its use by popularisers doesn't make it encyclopaedic - it's just a phrase in English. Guettarda 01:30, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Are you talking about handwaving? That's a veritable WP article on a scientific colloquialism. ~ trialsanderrors 02:56, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
• Point of Information The phrase is not "also" used to refer to Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, as the article says. Rather, there is a significant amount of evidence that the phrase in this scientific discourse usage is taken straight from Kipling's phrase. See: this Google Scholar search. Also 1090 hits on Google Scholar in general] which isn't bad Bwithh 02:07, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment yes, the term in evolutionary biology was directly inspired by Kipling's stories but has evolved its own meaning - a plausible-sounding evolutionary hypothesis with no direct evidence supporting it. No objections to redirecting to Just So Stories and including a mention of the term's meaning there. Note that it's used mainly in works of popular science, not in peer-reviewed work. Opabinia regalis 02:16, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

True, but "fair tale" + biology get 2090 hits, but we don't have a separate article about that usage. It's an English phrase. We shouldn't have encyclopaedia articles about random phrases used in various contexts. Guettarda 14:52, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Merge with Just So Stories. Redirect the Just-so story article to there. The phrase does not seem to have derived independently from Kipling's stories. Bwithh 02:07, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per Guettarda or barring, that merge and redirect per Bwith. This term isn't used in science really. JoshuaZ 03:26, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep or Merge per Bwithh, Google Scholar provides enough examples of its use, e.g. The very ease with which such " just-so stories" can be told suggests that we should be skeptical about them from Journal of Economic Perspectives. Besides, the currect two-liner in Just So Stories needs to be replaced. ~ trialsanderrors 06:42, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per Guettarda or failing that, merge with redirect per Bwith. Phrase may be barely notable enough for a brief mention in Just So Stories, but there isn't enough extender to make an article out of this, any more than out of Guettarda's example of arm waving. KillerChihuahua^?!? 10:33, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
• Comment A JSTOR search for ...story restricted to articles gives 111 hits, for ...stories 201. Although there might be some overlap. ~ trialsanderrors 16:59, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - There are examples on the net of the use of the phrase just-so story, and of the related "pourquois stories". There are a number of different editors working on this. It may not be much now, but it could be if allowed to grow. SilkTork 16:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
• keep subject to clean-up, just-so story has a clear & specific meaning in criticisms of adaptationism as per Steven J. Gould which deserves coverage in WP. Pete.Hurd 02:15, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per others above. - CNichols 23:32, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Keep -- I just heard a lecture on the nature of human languange. The speaker used phrase "Just-so Stories" several times. I did not understand the meaning or the derivation in this context. It *may* be a good idea to merge this page with the "Just So Stories" page. (tshilson at gmail dot com)[The Story of Human Language bhy Professor John McWhorter, Manhattan Institure published by The Teaching Company.

• Keep The term has significant use in scholarly work. e.g., Google Scholar lists:

706 for "Just-so story" evolution 810 for "Just-so story evolutionary 1260 for "Just-so stories" evolution 1330 for "Just-so stories" evolutionary 557 for "Just so story" biology 612 for "Just so story" psychology

See added External Links under the Just so story page, for Evolution, Evolutionary, Darwin, Darwinian, Anthropology, Biology, Psychology, Sociology.DLH 03:29, 8 July 2006 (UTC) Separate or merge? Some set up this as a separate page and others asked for the use in scholarly work to be moved here. Propose Separate pages with Summaries and links used to refer each to the other, and add a disambiguation page. --DLH 02:42, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

(Deleted the current Keep/Delete I had added per trialsanderrors educationDLH 04:07, 8 July 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.