Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Emotional brain

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 delete. Mailer Diablo 15:38, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Emotional brain

This page was first questioned in June 2005, and sources were first explicitly requested in August 2005. None have appeared. The article is not verifiable, and possibly original research. --Hughcharlesparker 15:24, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

• comment no such article, nevermind, link fixed--205.188.116.203 15:30, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete perma-unsourced conjecture. -- GWO
• Delete No external links and no references, and almost certainly OR. In fact, looking at the first edit from the article's revision history, the original article didn't even have any intrawiki links; in addition, it is the only contribution the original author ever made to WP (and s/he made the article in one giant chunk), which even more greatly smacks of OR. -- Kicking222 16:17, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete fails WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:OR Crum375 17:44, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
• Comment – This is in general a well-established academic hypothesis, although not all details of the article may be. It is not in my areas of expertise, but I have read articles and even a book about this. As a starting point for people who might want to research sources, look at Mapping the Evolution of the Emotional Brain: The Triple Balance, which has several entry points. Googling emotional-brain+evolution+-wikipedia gives many more references, and a popularizing web site BrainConnection.com, not directly suitable for sourcing but good for some background. Lambiam^Talk 21:26, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

  Neither of those two links suggest a separate anatomical entity as the article under review does. The phrase "emotional brain", as in "the evolution of the emotional brain" seems rather to be being used as a phrase describing the emotional capacity of the brain. You could compare the phrase "the evolution of the tool-using ape" in describing our species' development. On the talk page, JohnElder suggested that the article was describing the limbic system - is that the well-established academic hypothesis you're referring to? I should add that I am also not an expert in this field. --Hughcharlesparker 21:50, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

  The article may be overstating the case, and also presents as fact what is considered an interesting hypothesis. The amygdala is generally considered an anatomical entity that is part of the brain, and is sometimes popuraly referred to as a "reptilian brain" -- although the reptilian brain has more functions than the amygdala. I don't think, though, that it can be equated with the "emotional brain" as meant here, which would be more like a "mammalian brain": kind of the human brain minus the specifically human neocortex. Clearly (this is not the hypothesis but generally accepted wisdom), in the phylogeny of the brain, an important role is played by the appearance of complex "add-on" subsystems, next to gradual adaptation of existing systems. The triple-balance hypothesis is something like that each next add-on offers more refined decision making capabilities, but has to cope with the cruder reactions of coexisting older subsystems (unless you are Spock), and must try to (and often fails) to achieve a balance. That's about what I remember, which may be different from what I read. --Lambiam^Talk 22:33, 9 May 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.