Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Biological issues in Jurassic Park

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 discussion temporarily suspended ~ Riana ⁂ 09:23, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Biological issues in Jurassic Park

This is another one of those subjects that you'd swear is a good topic for a Wikipedia article. Until you actually read what we've got, that is.

As an encyclopedia, what we need is reliable reporting of comments by biologists on the feasibility of Jurassic Park.

What we've got is a quite well written treatise, describing the beliefs of some Wikipedia editors, based on their interpretations of the movie of Jurassic Park and of some biology text books.

Sources cited are an Abstract on gene amplification and sequencing of Cretaceous period weevil DNA, another on gene sequencing far more recent mammal DNA (from the Pleistocene, that's 10,000-2,000,000 years ago), and a molecular biology textbook. None of these sources, needless to say, has any comments on the movie or the novel, so the writers are engaging in a novel synthesis from primary sources.

This is all very well, you may say, but surely it could just be cleaned up by removing the original research, locating what molecular biologists, paleontologists and the like have actually said about the film Jurassic Park, and writing about that. Fine, I say, except that in nearly eighteen months this has not yet happened. The article just fills up with the personal opinions of its editors.

The writing isn't actually that bad, and perhaps the ideas have some merit (I couldn't say because I'm neither a molecular biologist nor a paleontologist). Perhaps it should be transwikied. Wikibooks? The problem isn't the article itself, it's the existence of such an article on an encyclopedia avowedly committed to the neutral point of view. --Tony Sidaway 13:44, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• Uncertain. I understand your concerns on this one, and this is the most insidious problem we face, I feel: original research that looks like it's probably true. It all makes sense. There's nothing in this article that stands out to me (as a non-expert) as likely to be wrong. You may be right that deleting and starting again would be the best approach. But maybe somebody else has a better idea. JulesH 15:04, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
• "Transwiki' to WIkiBooks, starting some sort of new anthology of essays on popular culture and media. May be a dead end, but could also be a useful place to send a lot of articles. Phil Sandifer 15:36, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Tony. it seems also in large part to be based on a specific book on the subject--and there will of course be other articles to be found. Encyclopedic topic, and worth a separate article. Needs some editing, so edit instead of nominating for deletion. DGG (talk) 23:43, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

  Which book is it based on? --Tony Sidaway 00:44, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

• Oh, crud. I request temporary withdrawal: Since the article was PRODded a few days ago, I've been planning - as I said in the edit history - to raise some of the needed noise, get the attention of the local experts, but I was blindsided by the usual flurry of disputes, AfDs and other commitments. (For the record, I'm currently in ADHD testing).
  The article has - as Sidaway says - a valid basis, and there's no particular reason why it couldn't be fixed. This a very low-profile article. Note that it's within scope of multiple WikiProjects and hasn't been tagged for any! Linking from the field of biology is nonexistent, as well, even though there must be some articles on dinosaurs and cloning that broach the issue of Jurassic Park - this is probably due to a common porblem with novel articles, they don't get exposure because people don't realize that they could exist. The first effective measure for requesting community attention was only implemented and integrated into Community Portal earlier this July.
  It's entirely possible for an obscure, isolated article that requires considerable specialist knowledge for sourcing to remain unfixed for long periods of time. What we should now do is call for the attention the article requires. Call WikiProjects Biology and Dinosaurs, possibly Films and some of the relatives of Biology, such as Evolutionary Biology - we could ask them to check which ones. At least Dinosaurs does collaboration. Add a wider attention tag - we can do that on discussions on WikiProjects. Specifically instruct editors to remove what they cannot verify and rewrite from scratch if they deem it necessary. But this is will need some time, and Deletion very seldom helps fix articles. (Just a personal essay, but you've all witnessed it.) Few commit to making major changes on material that risks the axe shortly anyway, even fewer now that nominations close sooner. Calling off the AfD for the moment is the best thing to do for making this into a sourced and referenced article, which the nominator and JulesH agree to be the optimal solution. --Kizor 00:15, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

  You can call me Tony. I've no problem with suspending this discussion for a month or so. --Tony Sidaway 00:43, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

  You say that so much more concisely than me. Then let's do so, and I'll begin summoning the swarm. --Kizor 08:33, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

• Delete The sources do in a sense back up what the article says. However, it is technically all original research, since the authors took what is said in the sources and applied their own analysis to it. If there was a source where someone else discussed this, then it would be easily included. But as it is, its the independant analysis of some editors. i ^said 00:45, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, many articles have been written on this topic. Even entire books, so then of course we can have an article on it here on wikipedia. Mathmo ^Talk 00:52, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

  Sure. But is this that article? Is any part of it that article? What's left when we take away the original research? --Tony Sidaway 00:55, 1 August 2007 (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.