Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Consensus science (2nd nomination)

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 - Keeps did not refute the consensus.Blnguyen | BLabberiNg 02:11, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Consensus science

This article was nominated for deletion nearly a year and a half ago but no consensus was reached (here). User Dicksonlaprade tagged it for AfD, but added the old AfD for this article, so I made it. --  Nishkid64  ^Talk _Contribs  17:45, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the consensus was to keep the article. There is no reason to revisit this issue. --SpinyNorman 05:33, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Not true. The result was "no consensus." By default these are kept, but may be revisited later. Andrew Levine 13:08, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Sorry for the confusion.

Here are the possible reasons for keeping this article as is: (1-3) the quotations by Crichton, Josephson, and Paltridge in the "History and Background" section; (4-5) the Lindzen and Lomborg examples in the "Resistance to Contradiction" (??!!) section; and (6) the widespread use of the phrase, as attested by the fact that Google turns up a large number of hits when you type in "'consensus science'". Reasons 1-5 are dealt with by Dicksonlaprade (me) on this article's discussion page. All that's left of these reasons are the quotations by Crichton and Paltridge. Not enough to save the article by themselves, in my view.

As for the Google thing, a perusal of the first twenty search results for the phrase "'consensus science'" shows that the vast majority of them fall into one of the following categories: the Wikipedia entry which I am discussing and the related entry at Answers.com; references to Michael Crichton's speech; things which have nothing to do with "consensus science" at all (e.g., the book title Forged Consensus: Science, Technology, etc.); or blog entries (for, e.g., fare.livejournal.com and blogcritics.org). Conspicuously lacking are references by scientists or by historians or philosophers of science to the concept.

I also did a search for articles and reviews in the science and history/philosophy of science journals in the database JSTOR. The only references to the phrase "'consensus science'" which I turned up were to the aforementioned book title. Considering that JSTOR indexes articles from such prestigious journals as Science, Evolution, and Philosophy of Science, this absence is especially damning.

As per the "Verifiability" policy, it would appear that the best resource for this concept is Michael Crichton of Jurassic Park fame--hardly a philosopher or historian of science--and his epigones. This being the case, I see no reason for this article not to become a subdivision of "scientific consensus." Giving this dubious concept its own entry makes it appear that some reliable professionals give it credence--an appearance for which I can find no evidence.

Let's Delete this article. Dicksonlaprade 18:36, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

• Keep - This was already decided --SpinyNorman 05:33, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

"No consensus" is not a decision. Andrew Levine 09:02, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Further, as per Afd/Wikietiquette (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion), the debate on this page "is not a vote; please make recommendations on the course of action to be taken, sustained by arguments." I don't see an argument in support of your "Keep" recommendation, and I would like to see one. Dicksonlaprade 16:24, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Since you have failed to make your case for why it should be deleted, I'm not sure any arguments I could make would be relevant. The fact is that the term is used by scientists and laypeople alike and similar terms (e.g. Cargo Cult Science) are also in use. You haven't given a good reason why an article describing a valid and current concept like this should be deleted? --SpinyNorman 07:13, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per Dickson's convincingly-laid-out argument. Andrew Levine 09:02, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. Vsmith 13:11, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete A lot of hot air blown about nothing significant. There is often consensus in science. Sometimes it is proven incorrect. Kind of like anything else that people try to figure out. But the terminology in this article is used to promote a strongly NPOV stance. I see no way that it will ever meet WP:POV. Dipics 13:50, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and improve - Wikipedia is not limited to topics covered by science journals. As stated in the previous AfD, this article attempts to describe potential pitfalls of scientific consensus. --Spiffy sperry 14:49, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Insofar as this article's primary purpose is to "describe potential pitfalls of scientific consensus," it seems that the material in this article would be better placed on the "scientific consensus" page. Insofar as "consensus science" is a distinct concept/term with relatively wide usage in scientific circles, it would deserve its own article--but I see no evidence for this. By way of comparison, Ann Coulter's recent book Godless uses the term "flatulent raccoon theory" to describe the theory of evolution because, in her mind, it is such a ridiculous theory. There are many Wikipedia articles where this fact about her could be mentioned, but since the term itself comes only from Ann Coulter and her epigones, there is no need to give it its own entry. The same applies here: without Michael Crichton and those who quote him approvingly (outside of the scientific community), there is no "consensus science." Dicksonlaprade 16:11, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. Restricting the Google search to 20 items seems a little restrictive, but you somehow missed Nature's "Consensus science, or consensus politics?". Searching on the Nature site for "consensus science" provides 7 results, so why did your other journals search fail? Looking at a few dozen results from Google provides more material: (SEWilco 20:44, 31 August 2006 (UTC))
  1. Pathological, Precautionary and Consensus Science - a Death Knell for the Scientific Method? (link is in the Wikipedia article but no apparent content)
  2. "THE DANGERS OF CONSENSUS SCIENCE" National Post, 17 May 2005
     1. Searching the National Post finds "Climate consensus and the end of science" and "'Consensus science' hot air", the former says that rather than being deleted this article should be expanded: "While the Wikipedia item is a useful, if rough, polemical introduction to the issue, it doesn't begin to plumb the ocean of dense philosophical discourse behind the movement to turn science -- the pursuit of fact, knowledge and truth through the scientific method, based on reason and experiment -- into a great social swamp of beliefs marked by consensus, social arrangements and customarily accepted ideas."
  3. "Comment on Peer Review Standards" (pdf)
  4. "Confusion, Consensus and Robust Policy Options"

Good searching. HOWEVER: the article "Climate Consensus and the End of Science" is written by Terence Corcoran of the "Financial Post"--not exactly the best source in terms of Verifiability. Item #3 on your list refers to the term "consensus science" only in a Michael Crichton quotation. Item #4's only citation to the phrase "consensus science" is a link to one of the 7 articles in Nature, the one by Pielke (Pielke is also the author of #4).

I checked and it turns out that JSTOR, the database which I used, does not include Nature,which explains the absence of these articles which you mention. HOWEVER: the first of the 7 entries in Nature makes no reference to "consensus science" except in the title, while the second is by Pielke (referenced by entry #4 in your own list). Out of all the journals catalogued by JSTOR plus the journal Nature, there are thus only half a dozen actual uses to the term. The case for KEEP is stronger than first appears, but 6-7 clear references in dozens of journals (JSTOR catalogues 62 journals in "Biological Sciences" alone) and in over 20 Google search results is still not a very strong case from the standpoint of Verifiability. Dicksonlaprade 21:28, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Since the reason you gave for deletion has been invalidated, can we expect you to withdraw your request that the article be deleted? --SpinyNorman 17:56, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

It has? News to me (and to Guettarda and JoshuaZ and FeloniousMonk, as well). Out of over 20 Google search results and over 60 journals, the best resource for this concept is a half-dozen references in a single journal and TV and novel writer Michael Crichton. Thomas Kuhn doesn't use the concept and neither (to my knowledge) do Karl Popper, Daniel Dennett, Paul Feyerabend, or any respected zoologists, botanists, physicists, epidemiologists, astronomers. . . .

Also: the phrase "the reason you gave for deletion" is not quite accurate since both here and on the article's discussion page I listed several reasons (having to do with the saccharine and pellagra examples, the Lomborg and Lindzen examples, etc.) This is why I am not withdrawing my request. Anything in this article will fit quite tidily under "Scientific consensus," and nothing in this article stands on its own from the standpoint of Verifiability. 129.15.127.254 18:50, 1 September 2006 (UTC) Apologies. This is me. Dicksonlaprade 18:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Crichton is a scientist as well. Why isn't he a valid source for the usage? And if he isn't good enough, why isn't Nature a good enough source? --SpinyNorman 08:47, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Crichton is not a scientist. He is a TV and novel writer who went to medical school and (according to his Wikipedia entry) taught anthropology at Cambridge for a while. Nature is a good source, but the problem is that it is the only good source which uses the concept of "consensus science." When several dozen peer-reviewed journals fail to turn up more than six uses of a concept, this says that the concept does not deserve its own entry. Dicksonlaprade 12:54, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Do we know "the best resource" is from a single journal? I stumbled on some usage in one journal, but has a search really been done? If I search dozens of medical journals have I searched anything which is relevant to this topic? Can I claim "Statue of Liberty" is not a valid topic because not one medical journal mentions it? (SEWilco 06:20, 2 September 2006 (UTC))

• Delete per nom. It's a page that was started by a repeatedly-banned editor, basically to advance a POV. It has no encyclopaedic value, only argumentative value. Guettarda 23:54, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. JoshuaZ 00:04, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. •Jim62sch• 00:10, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete FeloniousMonk 17:08, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as per nom and Guettarda William M. Connolley 19:45, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, not in fact a coherent article topic, rather a piece of political rhetoric. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:48, 2 September 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.