Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eric Lerner

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 no consensus to delete or move, default to keep.

As a first approximation, we have 8 "keep" and 4 "delete" opinions, as well as 5 "move", 3 "move or delete" and 3 "move or keep" opinions. This does not include two "keep" opinions that I discount as spurious. There is no core policy issue here that compels me to keep or delete the article without regard to consensus. It has been alleged that the article violates or violated WP:BLP, but it is unclear to me why such problems, if any, cannot be fixed through normal editing. Instead, this is essentially a discussion about the notability threshold, in which almost all participants enunciate a more or less strict, but generally defensible interpretation of this threshold. Accordingly, I must look again to the head count and hold that there is at least no consensus to delete the article, which leads to a "keep" verdict by default.

Many people are of the opinion that the subject would be best covered by moving the article to The Big Bang Never Happened and refocusing it to be about the book. However, because the issue of outright deletion has complicated that discussion, the consensus for such a solution is not clear enough for me to impose it at this stage. Instead, the move option should be discussed more thoroughly at the article talk page. Sandstein (talk) 07:28, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Eric Lerner

Eric Lerner (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

WP:BIO states that

A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject.

• If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be needed to prove notability; trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may not be sufficient to establish notability.

It is my opinion that Eric has never received such attention never having been the point-of-fact subject of a sourced biography. Sure, he received a limited amount of notoriety from his book, but the sources written about his book criticizing the ideas aren't really about him. I also don't think that his book would satisfy WP:BK and so we shouldn't have an article about that. His company does not satisfy WP:ORG, so we shouldn't have an article about that. What is more, there is no source that I have found which focuses on Eric as a person: no secondary-source biographies written about the gentleman, no film biographies, no autobiographical reviews, and very little in the way of independent sourcing about his life in general. There is only bits and pieces here and there: an article in New Scientist which mentions Eric briefly, a quote from him in a book on Lyndon LaRouche, and brief paragraph-length biographies associated with his alternative cosmology conferences and an interview on Space Show (itself lacking a Wikipedia article and perhaps not worthy of one?): hardly enough to warrant notability. I might also refer you to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anthony Peratt for a similarly "giant figure" in plasma cosmology whose page was deleted on notability and sourcing grounds. I believe that any content worth including from Eric's biography page is actually better found at plasma cosmology, aneutronic fusion, or nonstandard cosmologies. He, as a person, simply shouldn't have a Wikipedia article.

WP:PROF may also be applicable here, but, of course, Eric is not a professor. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:53, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• Speedy keep, disruptive nomination due to a content dispute as clearly shown in the page history; ScienceApologist actually admits that "The notability of Eric is not in question."[1]. John254 16:06, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

  Your advocacy caused me to look carefully at WP:BIO. I now believe that I was wrong in that assessment. Eric is not notable enough for inclusion at Wikipedia. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:08, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

So, um, in the nearly four years you have been editing Wikipedia, you hadn't "looked carefully" at WP:BIO? In any event, Eric Lerner's notability is established by

(1) His book, "The Big Bang Never Happened", which was reviewed extensively in some nice reliable sources like The New York Times and the Skeptical Inquirer, as described in Eric_Lerner#Reception_of_The_Big_Bang_Never_Happened, thus establishing a presumption of notability per the general notability guideline

(2) His efforts to use the dense plasma focus to produce aneutronic fusion via a hydrogen-boron reaction, his technical writing, and the awards he has received from the Aviation Space Writers Association, as described in Eric_Lerner#Professional_activities. John254 16:26, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

1. The book did receive some reviews, but as WP:BK#Criteria says, it isn't just good enough to have a minor tussle at NYTimes and Victor Stenger criticize you in the Skeptical Inquirer to establish the notability of the book. By that criteria, Lerner's book is not notable.
2. The Aviation Space Writers Association is not a notable award and his efforts to achieve aneutronic fusion as ignored so much that there was WP:COI and WP:SOAP issues brought up about it. Again, this does not establish notability for Eric.

The best you can do is say that some of the things surrounding Eric are notable. Again, I suggest that merging useful content into plasma cosmology (including, perhaps, the tussel in the New York Times regarding the Davies-Lerner-Penzias letters-to-the-editor debate). But this is a biography and it must be notable per WP:BIO to establish the need for a singular article on the subject. I am of the opinion that this article should not exist because the subject of the article has not received the note that is required for a decent biography to be written. We can't even find adequate sources for his political involvement, for example. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:34, 13 April 2008 (

[ec] John, WP:BLP has become a lot stronger, and a lot more rigorously enforced, over time. As the debates on the talk page show, there are very few independent reliable sources primarily about Lerner. Kudos to SA for stepping back and checking his perspective - "we need to rebut this kook" is a poor reason for having an article on a barely-notable person who runs a non-notable company and has received a non-notable award from a maybe-but-likely-not-very notable group. For a biography of an individual asserted to be a notably controversial person, we would need good quality secondary analytical sources that discuss the individual and the controversy in detail. I see no such sources. All we have are directory-style biographies and some discussions of his book, some of which give a bit of background information on Lerner. If he was writing mainstream pop science then this would not be a problem, but he isn't. Guy (Help!) 16:41, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Right. So, basically, ScienceApologist has been editing this article with the purpose of "we need to rebut this kook", by focusing excessively on criticism and unreasonably excluding favorable material, in a massive violation of Wikipedia:BLP#Criticism. Do you propose that, instead of banning ScienceApologist from the article, we should actually reward this misconduct by granting his request to have the article deleted in its entirety? John254 17:05, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• Delete or repurpose as an article on the notable book. Lerner is not a notable academic, and we should not have articles that go to great lengths to describe how much of a kook someone is. Independent coverage is almost exclusively about the book. I'd call this a WP:BLP1E case, basically. Guy (Help!) 16:34, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Please refactor that comment Guy. You often evince concern for BLP's and that is a good thing, yet you use a derogatory term to describe Lerner. That's completely unacceptable even in Wikipedia space and you should know better. Maybe the k word is not a bad word in the UK, but it certainly is in the US. I find it intensely ironic that while ostensibly supporting the deletion of an article because much of the content defames someone you yourself make a point of defaming said person. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 01:01, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I didn't say he was a kook, I said that "we should not have articles that go to great lengths to describe how much of a kook someone is". Guy (Help!) 07:49, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Split hairs if you like, but obviously your comment can easily be read in the first sense (i.e. that you are describing him that way) and that is how I first read it. Even if one reads it as you say it should be read you are still making a defamatory statement about a living person. What possible harm does it do to simply refactor your comment to say something like "go to great lengths to explain that someone's work is not respected by the scientific mainstream"? You already supported including inaccurate information about Lerner which stayed in the article for a couple of days, so I think it would be courteous of you now to reword a sentence you wrote that many would read as a personal attack against him. There's absolutely no reason not to other than sticking to your guns for the sake of it, but our BLP policies are a bit more important than that.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:45, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Since it's conceded that the book is notable, deletion is unjustified in any event, as it would be far more efficient to retain the description of the book in Eric_Lerner#Reception_of_The_Big_Bang_Never_Happened than to delete the article and completely rewrite the description. John254 16:43, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the book is notable in any case. WP:BK seems to indicate that it probably isn't. We can cover the one-time interest surrounding the book adequately at plasma cosmology. ScienceApologist (talk) 16:46, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Significant coverage of the book in The New York Times and the Skeptical Inquirer, as described in Eric_Lerner#Reception_of_The_Big_Bang_Never_Happened, establishes its notability per criterion 1 of Wikipedia:Notability (books). John254 17:16, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Eric+J+Lerner%22 shows about 850 ghits, most of them about the book. Searching for Eric Lerner gets a lot of hits about other Eric Lerners. Most of the material supportive of Lerner seems to be written by Lerner himself, e.g. on Focus Fusion or Lawrenceville Plasma Physics' sites. First hit on Amazon is another Eric Lerner altogether, but the book is cited by others and is at the 45,000 mark in Amazon's sales rank. I think we can have an article on the book, with sources, but I am much less convinced that we can safely have one on Lerner. I don't think a deletion debate is inappropriate, even if the outcome is to rename, redirect, or refactor. Is the subject, Eric J Lerner, independently notable, is the question here, and I am not convinced, per the "more toruble than it's worth" test as much as anything else. Guy (Help!) 17:07, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• Weak delete Since Wikipedia is not paper, we could include marginally notable biographies, but I'm not even sure Eric Lerner is marginally notable. We don't want articles on all the people that have their own (unsuccessful) company, or that wrote one book that caused some discussion several years ago, or that won some award once. Lerner at least did all of these things, but still, he's just not very important. (Based on secondary sources. Of course, if you personally believe that he will achieve economical fusion or that plasma cosmology will eventually surplant the Big Bang theory, I can understand your frustration.) --Art Carlson (talk) 17:06, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Striking "weak". I guess I should have read WP:BIO before I voted. I can't find any criterion under which he would qualify. --Art Carlson (talk) 17:23, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

It seems this has turned into a three-way choice between (among) delete, keep, and change it to talk primarily about the book. The high-water mark of the book is an (unfavorable) review in the NYT shortly after publication. We can't seriously want an article on every book that was ever reviewed in the NYT, can we?! I think the case for notability of the book is weak, but not so weak as that for Lerner, himself. In the three-way contest my choice is: deleting everything is best, changing it to an article on the book is a poor idea but an acceptable compromise, considering that no clear consensus has yet developed. --Art Carlson (talk) 06:38, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

• Weak delete. Based on the letter of the policy it would appear that this individual would count as non-notable, but the book that they authored may. It seems to me a fairly good plan to delete the article and have a minimal amount of bio info at an article about the book. Jefffire (talk) 17:18, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep as repurposed article on the book, at least. With reviews in both the New York Times and The New York Review of Books, as well as Science & Society, Sky & Telescope, and Skeptical Inquirer, his book is most certainly notable. Probably keep an article about Lerner himself as well, as he seems to be a fairly prolific pop-sci author. InfoTrac shows many articles in Laser Focus World and Aerospace America, at least one in Discover and New Scientist, and several in Esquire. Besides the NYT kerfluffle about his book, it generated controversy in Skeptical Inquirer and New Scientist, and there was a second back-and-forth in the NYT regarding J. Richard Gott [2] Jfire (talk) 17:27, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —Jfire (talk) 17:47, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
• Delete. I hate to see a guy abused on Wikipedia, so personally I'd rather see it deleted. Guy/JzG is right that only the book, according to the source we have, is notable. The article can be re-created as about the book. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise on this, and will change my vote if this happens. So send me an email or talk page. It's all about the sources. But I urge you to think about exactly what purpose putting Lerner -or his book- on WP has. To me, it may serve some good purpose in warning people against the book, if the book is wrong (I have no idea). Yet, Wikipedia will not give it a neutral or open-minded evaluation, because the sources probably don't. Thus, we can't. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 18:00, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

The rationale for deletion you suggest would have the effect of rewarding ScienceApologist and JzG for their WP:BLP violations. Not all reliable sources concerning Eric Lerner's work are negative -- the problem here is that ScienceApologist insists on blanket reversions to remove most favorable material with factually incorrect edit summaries -- see, for example, [3], which falsely asserts that there was "no indication on talk why John did this", even though I provided a detailed explanation of the edits at Talk:Eric_Lerner#Van_Allen_review. Other inappropriate removals of favorable content include [4], which incorrectly removes material attributed to peer-reviewed journals, including The Astro­physical Journal, which even ScienceApologist acknowleges is a reliable source, as described on Talk:Eric_Lerner#Description_of_Eric_Lerner.27s_research. This exclusion of well-sourced positive material, and excessive focus on criticism, violates WP:NPOV and Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Criticism, the latter of which provides that

The views of critics should be represented if they are relevant to the subject's notability and can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, and so long as the material is written in a manner that does not overwhelm the article or appear to side with the critics; rather, it needs to be presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a neutral, encyclopedic tone.

Rather than rewarding ScienceApologist for his disruption by granting his request to destroy the article completely, I would ask editors here to assist in the effort to bring this article into compliance with our biographies of living persons policy. John254 18:26, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Given me one really mainstream source just to establish Lerner's notability beyond the book, and you have a cut and dried case. ——Martin^phi ☎ Ψ Φ—— 19:48, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

He has written a number of articles and papers appearing in mainstream publications -- see, for example, his articles Laser Focus World [5], Discover Magazine [6], and Esquire: "Radio radiation threat breeds controversy" (May 1985) and "Mending marrow with magnetism" (Jan 1985) (excerpted from InfoTrac search results provided by Jfire). John254 20:34, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• Keep How can someone with so many references from so many different sources, including at least two different online biographical statements, not be notable? In my mind, this guy is way past the minimum threshhold for notability. Nyttend (talk) 18:05, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
• Delete The case laid out above by Guy and SA seems to me both clear and unequivocal. Eusebeus (talk) 18:42, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Only to the extent that "please delete this article because there's some resistance to turning it into an attack page and a coatrack for criticism" is considered to be a valid argument. John254 19:19, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• Unsure This appears to be a difficult case and I'd appreciate more sourced information, especially from those advocating "keep". It seems that the book "The Big Bang Never Happened" is clearly notable. I am not sure about notability of Eric Lerner himself. One possibility is to consider him under WP:PROF. However, he never completed a doctoral degree and never held what is generally understood as an academic position. A GoogleScholar, WebOfScience and Publish-or-Perish searchers under his name produce very little, with h-index seemingly around 6-7 or so. On the other hand his position at Lawrenceville Plasma Physics could be characterized as a research position and he appears to be frequently referred to as a "researcher" in connection with reviews of his book. So one could try to make a case that he is an academic with a highly non-standard academic career. Still, I have not, so far, found much in the way of citations of his work in scholarly publications. His book and his views did receive a fair amount of coverage in conventional mass media, but it would appear that this coverage is mostly negative rather than positive and that his opinions are mostly cited as those of an "anti-expert". So it is not clear to me that he satisfies WP:PROF. I think that a stronger case could be made that he satisfies WP:BIO, if there is a substantial amount of coverage related to him in conventional media. (I disagree with the ScienceApologist that a full blown biographical article in the newsmedia or in a scholarly journal is required to satisfy WP:BIO. Significant amount of nontrivial coverage related to him specifically would be enough.) However, when I tried to do various searchers, I did not find very much here either. A GoogleNews search (all dates) under "Eric J Lerner" returns 22 hits[7]. A GoogleNews search for "Eric Lerner" returns 193 hits[8] but almost all appear to be false positives. Further filtering such as "Eric Lerner" cosmology[9] or "Eric Lerner" physics[10] return hits in single digits, with "Eric Lerner" big bang scoring 16 hits [11]. I am quite perplexed by these low results as I had expected many more hits, especially since he is said to have written up to 600 popular science articles in conventional media (where are they, by the way? and why don't they come up when doing these searches)? All this makes me suspect that this is essentially a BLP1E case, but perhaps I am not looking in the right places. Nsk92 (talk) 19:45, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, you could try an InfoTrac search, as described in the comment by Jfire above. John254 20:01, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Here's more details based of an InfoTrac search:

• Contributing editor to Laser Focus World: [12]
• Discover: [13]
• NY Review of Books: [14]
• Skeptical Enquirer: [15]
• Esquire: "Radio radiation threat breeds controversy" (May 1985) and "Mending marrow with magnetism" (Jan 1985) Jfire (talk) 20:16, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, I just did an InfoTrac search, but the results were not substantially different from my earlier searches. I found 18 hits in "academic journals" (several are articles by Lerner and the rest are reviews of his book), 10 hits in "magazines" (3 articles by Lerner and 7 reviews of his book) and 9 hits in "news" (1 false positive and the others are the NYT review of his book and NYT letters to the editor regarding that review). If anything, these results reinforce the BLP1E impression. For me the real issue here is if there is enough coverage of him other than the reviews of his book. The Discover and Skeptical Enquirer articles mentioned above are certainly valid references but they do not appear to be sufficient. The NYT Review of Books reference is a review of his book. I would also like to know where the 600+ publications figure is coming from, if the figure is valid and if yes, what kind of publications we are talking about. One of the claims to notability is as a prolific popular science writer and I'd like to be able to verify the "prolific" part. Nsk92 (talk) 20:38, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• Keep the book reviews are sufficient, combined with the authorship of the articles, and the awards for technical writing in the archives of the article. The history of this article in its archives, and some related pages Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience , User talk:Elerner gives reason to think there might be some personal animus involved here. DGG (talk) 20:56, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

and now a current request for Arbcom, [16]. Deletion of the article is not the solution to this sort of content/personality dispute. DGG (talk) 21:04, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, after writing a statement claiming that my request for arbitration was completely without merit, Nick restored the request on purely technical grounds.[17] Since consideration of the matter is now active again, I invite editors to review my description of the WP:BLP violations by ScienceApologist and JzG at Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration#ScienceApologist.2FJzG. John254 21:25, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

This is a breach of WP:CANVASS and I invite you to redact your comment forthwith. Nick (talk) 22:05, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Nope. The request was mentioned by DGG in the comment above, so I'm afraid that editors viewing this discussion already know about it. Moreover, the fact that the comment was only posted to one page, and that this is a relatively neutral forum (not all editors here agree with me by any means) both weigh in favor of a finding that this does not constitute disruptive canvassing. Sunlight is the best disinfectant -- the current disposition of the case must be quite incorrect if my single comment at AFD could alter it. John254 22:18, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• Delete per WP:BIO1E and WP:PROF — a regular academic with a single possibly-notable published work would not be kept, and I don't see why we should hold fringe scientists to any lower standard. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:09, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Eric Lerner has written a great deal of work in printed in mainstream publications, as described above. Also, the book is clearly, and not merely possibly, notable due to the extensive reviews published by reliable sources, as previously described. John254 21:25, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

You've expressed your opinion already. Repeating it after every other comment here comes across as tendentious. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:34, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that is fair. First, tendentious is an essay and the points you might be referring to are unhelpful. the purpose of his argument is not to convince the principals of its legitimacy but to convince an audience. Protonk (talk) 06:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think WP:BIO1E applies here. Lerner was not covered only for one event, his political activities have been covered, albeit briefly, here and in other reliable sources not freely available online. His past political activities (involvement in the Columbia student strike in 1968 and the civil rights movement) have been covered in not-so reliable sources (and possibly some reliable ones as well, I don't know). As I said below the material on political activities was deleted from the article by ScienceApologist.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 01:20, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

• Keep when I scrolled over that article history, I see the Science Apologist guy had edited it. If you partook in making the article but now you want to delete it, I'd like to impeach his motive and suspect he is trying to retaliate against people who did not like his edits. Chimeric Glider (talk) 22:09, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep, or at the very least move most of the content into The Big Bang Never Happened (the book easily passes the notability criteria for books by being the subject of multiple reviews). Lerner wrote what is probably the single most well known book arguing against one of the more famous scientific theories in human history - I think that combined with the coverage in secondary sources makes him notable. Yes, I know, most people in the field do not respect the book and it is considered dated, but it created a significant splash at the time. Part of the additional criteria at WP:BIO is "the person has made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in his or her specific field." Even works in a given field which are generally believed to be wrong, but which had enough impact to be discussed, are a contribution and are "part of the enduring historical record" whether we like it or not. I would note that Lerner's current political activities on behalf of immigrants have also been covered in multiple independent sources (more sources than those that were listed in the article in past versions per a Nexis search). ScienceApologist deleted the political activities section because other editors, including myself, thought it a violation of WP:UNDUE to include a mention of Lerner's involvement with a Lyndon LaRouche group. Lerner's involvement with the NJ Civil Rights Defense Committee adds to this individual's notability, but I don't think we'll be able to mention that since ScienceApologist does not want it in the article. I strongly encourage the closing admin to investigate ScienceApologist's massive conflict of interest with this article when evaluating the various arguments. SA was in an on-Wiki dispute with the real-life Eric Lerner which went to arbitration. SA also added inaccurate and defamatory information about Lerner into the article without bothering to do enough homework to learn that the information was questionable. ScienceApologist strongly disagrees with Lerner's scientific ideas and personally I think he has no business editing this article at all given his past conflict with Lerner on Wikipedia. Under the circumstances, it's extremely difficult for me to assume good faith with respect to this AfD nomination, but aside from that I feel Lerner passes the notability guidelines at WP:BIO.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 00:52, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the info about Lerner's political activities. I had seen some links related to New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee when first doing GoogleSearch for Lerner, but filtered them out assuming they related to a different person. But it is now clear that they do relate to the subject of this article (I've just watched this vido clip[18] to make sure). I don't know if the article will be kept, but if yes, I think that at least a couple of sentences regarding his political activities can and should be included. I don't see a problem with WP:UNDUE here. I don't know, though, if his political activities add to his notability. Would he be notable per WP:BIO purely as a political activist? Almost certainly not. (Here are the hits[19] I found in GoogleNews regarding his political activities). The cases for notability as an academic or as a popular science writer are stronger than the case for notability as a political activist. Two weak deletes in very different categories do not really add up to one keep. However, I am beginning to lean towards keep anyway, based on wide notability of his book. Nsk92 (talk) 03:14, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

However, I do disagree with your statement that SA has a conflict of interest in relation to this article. I've just re-read the WP:COI policy and don't see how it applies in this case. Lerner's views on the Big Bang theory can be fairly characterized as fringe views and there aren't many people who share them. So the fact that SA strongly opposes Lerner's views and had a dispute on WP with Lerner does not, by itself, constitute a COI. Otherwise we will not have too many people who can edit articles on such fringe views as Flat Earth or American Nazi Party. Nsk92 (talk) 04:13, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't know whether or not SA has a conflict of interest by the letter of our policy, but certainly by the spirit of it. If he simply disagreed with Lerner's views that would be fine (the vast majority of scientists do). However I think it's extremely inadvisable to be editing (and then putting up for deletion) the bio of a person with whom one actively disputed on Wikipedia (and not a minor dispute, one which went to ArbCom where both parties were sanctioned or cautioned). As I said SA recently inserted inaccurate information about Lerner (claiming he was a follower of Lyndon LaRouche when this was not the case) which could have actually done real life harm to the subject (since association with LaRouche is viewed negatively by many in the US). Since we are talking COI here I should have already disclosed, as I did on the article talk page, that I met Lerner a couple of times several years ago (though I don't really "know" him per say) and had a phone conversation with him regarding the LaRouche issue which ultimately helped to resolve that. Understandably, he was quite upset that someone he had been in a dispute with on Wikipedia was adding inaccurate and (by his view) negative information to his biography. Given that I asked SA to leave off editing this article but he refused and now he has put the article up for his deletion. Sorry but I don't think that looks good at all considering that we are talking about a BLP. As to the political activities, they are probably not notable in and of themselves but I think they do prevent this from being a WP:BLP1E as I argue above. The argument about undue weight was that Lerner's association with a LaRouche group should not be included because it could not be properly contextualized with sources and was only a small portion of his life-long political activities. Because a couple of us did not want it included, ScienceApologist deleted all of the political activities paragraph. I did not think that was necessary but it seemed like the only way to put the issue to rest. I doubt SA will be amenable to putting in a sentence about the NJ Civil Rights group and I'm not really interested in arguing with him about it anymore. Hope that clarifies that issue a bit.--Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 08:09, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I wonder now if it may be better to merge this article, with most of its info, into the article on "The Big Bang never happened" book, if only to make it easier to deal with various BLP issues and controversies. It is clear that lerner's main claim to notability is his book, so his views could and would be properly covered there. On the other hand, it will be easier to contain various BLP battles and controversies that seem to be behind the past and the current ArbCom cases. E.g. the LaRouche issue would go away since it would certainly not belong in the article about Lerner's book. I've looked up the discussion regarding the current ArbCom case and it appears that much of the case is driven by disagreements about BLP issues (there was, apparently, even a recent legal threat by Lerner himself regarding this). Articles on fringe views are bound to attract controversy and zealots from all sides, so some kinds of battles are probably inevitable. But at least in an article about the book it will be easier to contain these battles and to confine them to discussing ideas rather than the person. Nsk92 (talk) 13:30, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

• Keep The coverage of the individual and of his book are clear claims of notability. These independent reliable and verifiable sources satisfy the Wikipedia:Notability standard. Alansohn (talk) 03:02, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep, per DGG, it is evident that his book has been reviewed by countless third party sources. MrPrada (talk) 07:49, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
• Move to The Big Bang Never Happened and prune irrelevant biographical details. --Relata refero (disp.) 14:41, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
• Move to The Big Bang Never Happened per Relata refero and delete irrelevant biographical details. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 16:27, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
• Move to The Big Bang Never Happened per Otolemur crassicaudatus and Relata refero. Essentially, this is still a BLP1E case. By moving to The Big Bang Never Happened the essential info regarding the book and regarding Lerner's views can be retained and much of the BLP-related controversy can be avoided. Nsk92 (talk) 17:00, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

  A mere superficial remedy such as changing the title of this article will hardly moot the WP:BLP problems created by ScienceApologist and JzG's editing of this article. To the extent that an article on The Big Bang Never Happened conveys the misimpression that Eric Lerner wrote a book full of pseudoscientific nonsense, it would cause harm to Lerner's career as a plasma and fusion researcher. Any treatment of Eric Lerner's book would therefore still implicate WP:BLP concerns, and would need to be written in a fair and balanced manner (as, indeed, all articles should, per WP:NPOV). This does not mean whitewashing criticism, or covering up the fact that Eric Lerner's theories lack mainstream acceptance. It does mean, however, that the treatment of criticism should be balanced by a clear and coherent description of the theories and claims being criticized, and that the favorable review of the book by a notable expert in this field, James Van Allen should not be unreasonably excluded on the basis of conjecture as to the manner in which it was procured. Merely stating that Lerner disputes the Big Bang theory, and providing two short quotations from the book, one of which is meaningless when abstracted from the context in which it appears, does not constitute such a coherent description of Lerner's theories. Indeed, moving the article to The Big Bang Never Happened would actually worsen the WP:BLP problems, as most of the information concerning Lerner's professional activities would be removed, giving significantly undue weight to the fact that Eric Lerner wrote a book with which most cosmologists disagree while ignoring the fact that Lerner wrote numerous scientific articles printed in mainstream journals and magazines, as described in the comments by Jfire above. John254 00:40, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

  I further note that while Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Undue_weight would prevent a detailed discussion of Eric Lerner's theories in an article concerning a mainstream or general topic such as the Big Bang or Physical Cosmology, this policy provision does not prevent an extensive treatment of Lerner's theories in an article concerning Eric Lerner:

  Minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them—Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. But on such pages, though a view may be spelled out in great detail, the article should make appropriate reference to the majority viewpoint wherever relevant, and must not reflect an attempt to rewrite majority-view content strictly from the perspective of the minority view.

  (I take no position as to whether Eric Lerner can be mentioned at all in our article concerning the Big Bang) John254 00:56, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

• Keep per Nyttend, far extends any reasonable interpreation of WP:BIO guidelines. Coccyx Bloccyx (talk) 21:24, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp (talk) 22:49, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
• Delete, with relevant content being merged to The Big Bang Never Happened. Notability is not temporary indicates that the article on the book should probably be retained. Lerner himself, however, appears to be notable pretty much solely for writing on a topic roundly ignored by the scientific community. Explaining this notoriety in TBBNH should suffice. - Eldereft ~(s)talk~ 00:34, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep Seems to be notable for what he did based on how well sourced his biography is. Yahel Guhan 05:40, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep .... notable ... J. D. Redding 12:50, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. Passes most of the WP:PROF criteria, for whatever that's worth, noting that it is not relevant whether other PROFs regard him as a kook, only that they have discussed him at great length, as demonstrated by the article's sources. I will echo the above suspicions that this AFD merely attempts to weasel out of an ongoing edit war. That's not how we solve content disputes on Wikipedia. — CharlotteWebb 17:23, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep as per DGG, others. Multiple third party sources. Even a lot of the people voting delete say his book is notable, which is an obvious claim of his notability. Edward321 (talk) 23:41, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
• Against deletion but I'm undecided whether to Keep as is or Move to The Big Bang Never Happened. To incorporate all this information about Lerner and his book into the Plasma cosmology article would clutter that article and give this aspect of the subject too much attention there. Although I therefore disagree with ScienceApologist's suggestion, I consider it important to note also my strong disagreement with the personal attacks made upon ScienceApologist. An editor having once concluded that a bio subject is notable is certainly entitled to reconsider that decision, and ScienceApologist doesn't even arguably have a conflict of interest here. I also disagree with this statement by John254: "To the extent that an article on The Big Bang Never Happened conveys the misimpression that Eric Lerner wrote a book full of pseudoscientific nonsense, it would cause harm to Lerner's career as a plasma and fusion researcher." I don't share John254's opinion that that conclusion would be a "misimpression", but my opinion is no more relevant than his. Our article (whether on the person or the book) can accurately report the consensus opinion of scientists in the field; that's not an opinion, it's a fact about opinions. From that fact, many readers will indeed conclude that the book is full of pseudoscientific nonsense. If the dissemination of that knowledge impairs Mr. Lerner's efforts to make money from people who aren't aware of the scientific community's view, too bad for Mr. Lerner. Accurate information that inconveniences a living person is not an ipso facto BLP violation. JamesMLane t c 07:54, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
• Move to an article about the book, and trim biographical information to the bare minimum (per BLP). Fails all WP:PROF criteria, and the book is clearly more notable than he is. (As an aside, the book being notable does not imply the author is notable, per BLP1E. If he had written more than one notable book, that might be different.) And, if the book is considered pseudoscience by the scientific community (or such of it as has commented on the book), it's not a BLP violation to say so. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:05, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

We don't have a single source to support the claim that Eric Lerner's book is "pseudoscience", or that any qualified scientists have ever described it as such. Though Eric_Lerner#The_Big_Bang_Never_Happened provides an extensive treatment of the criticism of the book by cosmologists, all the sources support is the claim that a number of researchers in this field have criticized the book, often quite strongly. Accordingly, we don't use the word "pseudoscience" in the article. The problem, of course, with the article is that it nonetheless tries to imply a claim that it can't state, by means of an imbalanced presentation of content, in violation of WP:NPOV and WP:BLP:

(1) It excludes the favorable review of the book by a highly respected space scientist, James Van Allen, on the basis that it was sourced only to the back cover of Lerner's book, while using a blog post as a source of criticism. If we can use a blog post as a source, we can surely use a book cover. (please see Talk:Eric_Lerner#Van_Allen_review)

(2) It fails to provide a coherent statement of Lerner's theories, but instead strings together a pastiche of quotations without context in order to make the theories look nonsensical. Do we not trust the reader to evaluate the merits of Lerner's claims that the Big Bang theory relies largely upon hypothetical and unobserved phenomena, such as cosmic inflation and dark energy, and that plasma cosmology provides a model of the universe more consistent with observable physical laws than the Big Bang?

(3) It excludes the fact that, contemporaneous with the publication of his book, Eric Lerner wrote a number of papers concerning his plasma cosmology theories which were published in peer reviewed journals, and that one such paper appeared in the highly respected Astrophysical Journal, which, as even ScienceApologist acknowledges, is clearly a reliable source for cosmology. (please see Talk:Eric_Lerner#Description_of_Eric_Lerner.27s_research)

Though WP:BLP1E has been advanced as a rationale for moving the article to the title of Lerner's book, to claim that our biographies of living persons policy actually supports "trim[ing] biographical information to the bare minimum" applies the policy in a manner manifestly contrary to its purpose, which is to protect the interests of the subjects of our biographies, not to harm them. Is it seriously contended that removing all information concerning Eric Lerner's numerous scientific articles printed in mainstream journals and magazines, and describing only the fact that Lerner wrote a book which has been the subject of extensive criticism, actually results in a more fair and balanced treatment of Eric Lerner? John254 01:08, 19 April 2008 (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.