Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chiral life concept

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 delete. Coredesat 05:46, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chiral life concept

Chiral life concept (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Appears to be WP:MADEUP. Dougie WII (talk) 12:00, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

• There were many internet discussions about it. If You google common phrase: 'chiral life' - it's the third. As You can find on Greg Bear's blog - similar idea was in Arthur C. Clarke "Technical Error". And there is much more science here than in most of (Category:Science fiction themes) articles. Jarek Duda (talk) 12:57, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
  • "Internet discussions" are almost never worth the paper that they are printed upon when it comes to fact checking and peer review. Per our Wikipedia:No original research policy, everything in Wikipedia must first have been through a process of fact checking, peer review, publication, and acceptance into the general corpus of human knowledge, outside of Wikipedia. If you want to make a case for keeping this article, pointing to a science fiction writer's musings in xyr on-line diary is nowhere near enough. Sources! Sources! Sources! These are your only arguments. Uncle G (talk) 13:25, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - I can't find that it got picked up by any notable media, only blogs and forums. --Storkk (talk) 14:26, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm still quite adamant on deletion: While this seems not to be WP:MADEUP, until it seems even conceivable that this would be reported by anything reliable or verifiable, I have to wholeheartedly agree with Uncle G's points: this is a non-notable internet fad whose WP article cannot become anything other than Original Research. --Storkk (talk) 13:58, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Proposer suggests that this was just made up. Jarek Duda has effectively demonstrated that this is not so. That's enough for the AFD proposal to fail - we are not required to go beyond this and turn this into a featured article right away. But here are some academic sources, just to be sure. My only qualm is the title. Chiral Life would be better, as the word concept seems redundant. Colonel Warden (talk) 14:33, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Jarek Duda (talk · contribs) has done nothing of the sort. Xe has pointed to a web log posting and a web discussion forum posting that both turn out to have been written by … Jarek Duda. Xe hasn't pointed to any of those supposed academic sources, and for good reason. Not a single one of them has anything at all to do with this proposed concept. I suggest reading them. They are discussing homochirality. Uncle G (talk) 14:57, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
    • You may have a point about Jarek Duda pushing his own idea but I don't think it's really a new one. See Chirality in biology, Chemical chirality in literature. Colonel Warden (talk) 15:35, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
      • It is a new one. That the concept of chirality is recognized in chemistry and biology doesn't make the idea of saving the planet by re-populating it with heterochiral life forms an accepted one that is part of the general corpus of human knowledge. ☺ To not be original research, an idea has to escape its creator, and be reviewed, checked, published, discussed, and acknowledged by the world at large. Duda has not persuaded a single other person to accept this idea. This sort of stuff is exactly what the Wikipedia:No original research policy exists to prevent. Uncle G (talk) 16:03, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Chirality in biology has nothing to do with the "Chiral life" concept, other than than chirality itself. Chiral life, as a concept, borders on nonsense, similar to the idea of harnessing zero point energy. At most, maybe a paragraph stating that "some people think", etc. under Chirality in biology wouldn't be too objectionable. WP:SOAP and WP:FORUM apply here, IMHO. --Storkk (talk) 14:09, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, and I agree with the proposed name change. There's a whole lot of science fiction stuff that is "beneath the dignity" of mainstream news publications. Probably most of it. That doesn't mean it isn't interesting or noteworthy. Besides, who is to say which "media" are "notable" anyway? Have you even looked at lists of newspapers in the US? They are a mess. "Lack of notability of second-hand sources" isn't a criterion for deletion. Cbdorsett (talk) 14:50, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia:No original research is, though. So far, we have an idea proposed by one person, that hasn't even been documented properly in fact checked reliable sources yet, and that has certainly not been acknowledged by the rest of the world, that that person has decided to write about directly in Wikipedia. Uncle G (talk) 14:57, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Quote: "who is to say which "media" are "notable" anyway?"... Um... WP:RS for one; WP:N similarly applies. --Storkk (talk) 14:09, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
• The 'concept' word is quite important here. It's quite obvious, eg looking on our amino acids or sugars, that there was symmetry breaking... Hypothetical aliens could use different chirality... There is popular concept of creating synthetic life - here is practical suggestion to use billions years of evolution too and maybe recreate part of our ecosystem - I believe that there will be a time when we create chiral E.Coli ... just because we will be able to. --Jarek Duda (talk) 18:05, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is not a soapbox for people to stand upon and publicize their personal beliefs and ideas. It is not a free publishing service nor a free web hosting service. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. There are proper venues for publishing novel ideas. An encyclopaedia is not one of them. Uncle G (talk) 21:21, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Well said. As a "concept" it still isn't notable until a reliable source has recognized it as something worth reporting on.--Storkk (talk) 14:09, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
• Snowball delete as original research. Regardless of what merits this content or concept might have, the content itself has no chance of slipping past established policy and guidlines (WP:RS, WP:N, WP:OR). Someguy1221 (talk) 05:25, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
  • What research? :) In this moment it's SF concept, and there was placed - consequences of hypothetical possibility presented for example by Clarke - famous SF writer. I believe, that if Omega-level mutant : Jean Grey, instead of the ability of Time Dance, was chiral, there wouldn't be a problem? --Jarek Duda (talk) 11:53, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
• Speedy delete, an unwikified mess of original research. The most this could ever hope to be is a few sentences in the article on the book it's derived from and the idle musings of bloggers fail WP:N. Chris Cunningham (talk) 13:30, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree it should be just a short note this time, so I've placed it like that. It should describe unique 'ability' of Clark's character and says a few words about consequences of using this hypothetical possibility - but it's extremely complicated topic - both possibilities and dangers ... the expanded version somebody proposed is still only the top of a mountain. --Jarek Duda (talk) 15:03, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete for all the reasons already given. Clarke's novels and stories may be notable, but essays and blog posts inspired by the ideas contained there are not. --Itub (talk) 15:17, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
  • So maybe Wiki should try to contact Clarke to ask about his opinion?--Jarek Duda (talk) 16:26, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
    • This is Wikipedia, not wiki, and it is an encyclopaedia not a primary research facility. Uncle G (talk) 15:19, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
      • Better to put here X-men's nicknames than Clarke's concept and some of its consequences which seems obvious and promising? I only suggested to ask about opinion someone more reliable than You or a stupid blogger. But You can learn a lot not disqualifying such noname persons from the start. Try sometimes to judge the ideas instead. Thanks that other editors didn't delete my another idea because of my lack of fame (Asymmetric binary system), it has been finally solidly verified. Thanks! :) --Jarek Duda (talk) 15:59, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
• Keep an important SF concept, perhaps by now it even seems obvious. I think Gamow and Asimov also talk about it , as do others, though it may take some finding. DGG (talk) 03:18, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
  • No, it isn't an important SF concept. The claim being made that Clarke has anything to do with this novel idea is utter rubbish. Don't put any credence into it. The story by Clarke doesn't deal with the idea of repopulating the ecosystem at all. It is not a story about bioengineering. This is not an SF concept at all, let alone an important one. It hasn't yet made it out of Duda's on-line musings into a science fiction story, let alone been researched and documented in sources that analyse SF. I draw your attention to the "What research?" comment above. There is no research. This is an attempt to abuse Wikipedia as a forum for doing that research, and for publishing a novel idea that has not been published, documented, peer reviewed, fact checked, analysed, or acknowledged, anywhere else. Uncle G (talk) 15:19, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete as OR per nom. and Uncle G. JohnCD (talk) 14:44, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete essay-style original research; no independent sources of any merit are provided. Maralia (talk) 06:41, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, no reliable sources, appears to be original research. Per Uncle G above. shoy 00:31, 18 December 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.