Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Foundations of statistics

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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 Keep: no case has been made for deletion, and insurmountable justification that this topic is notable enough for a separate article has been provided. Possibly the AfD was unfounded, but it makes no difference: this is a clear case for WP:SNOW. Geometry guy 13:52, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Foundations of statistics

Foundations of statistics (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Merge and redirect to statistics. This is not really a separate topic. (Procedural note: we don't have a "articles for merge", and nobody watches the talk page of articles like this.) Shalom (Hello • Peace) 15:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

By using the AfD procedure to accomplish your stated purpose of merging, you are violating WP:Point. The argument that "no one watches the talk page of articles like these" is ludicrious: of course, not, the article existed for mere 4 hours when you tagged it for deletion! Thanks for not prodding it, at least.Arcfrk (talk) 00:07, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
We don't have an "articles for merge" because you're supposed to propose a merge. WP:MERGE would be the obvious place to look. You also seem very unfamiliar with the point of the article - why would you nominate it if you hardly even know what it is? --Cheeser1 (talk) 00:18, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Merge. In noway it deserves a standalone article. -- Niaz(Talk • Contribs) 15:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Shalom and Niaz, are you trying to incite someone to point out that you are ignoramuses so that you can complain about "incivility"? We often see this on the AfD page: "'Physics'?? Never heard of it. OBVIOUSLY it doesn't need its own article. Let's merge it into 'physical education'." Etc. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:35, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Merge and redirect per nom. Reads more like what should be a section of a large article than as a seperate article.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 15:28, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I am the person who created the article. The article is stub, and it has a sticker to this effect. It is supposed to be expanded into a whole article, as explained on Talk:Statistics: please see that discussion for details.
The foundations of statistics is an important topic. I just tried googling for "foundations of statistics" (with the quotes) and got 110,000 results. There are also whole books with that title (see Amazon). The topic has been much debated by statisticians for many decades. I have substantial skill in statistics; I can assure you that it is major, well worth an article.
Niaz: You should not be making judgements like "noway it deserves a standalone article", if you do not have a background in the topic.
HisSpaceResearch: No claim is made that the present stub fulfills the role it should; it is a stub, for expansion.
TheSeven (talk) 15:45, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
    • I agree. We see this all the time on AfD. "I never heard of 'chemistry'. It sounds like some new religious movement. Delete the article or merge 'chemistry' into 'scientology'." Then when you point out the obvious fact that that is militant ignorance you get accused of incivility. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:54, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
      • Comment That might be because calling someone "militantly ignorant" is uncivil. Jeodesic (talk) 17:39, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
        • Which do you consider to be the more serious violation of the norms of society? Voting and strongly commenting while being in great ignorance of a topic or having someone point out (correctly if undiplomatically) that doing so appears to be miltantly ignorant? This is a serious issue, and it comes up not just on AfD, but in other, sometimes crucial, areas of society (which is my excuse for ranting).   TheSeven (talk) 18:06, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
          • I think you're missing the fact that a spade is a spade. Being ignorant, and taking controversial action to which many objections will be (and have been) raised sounds like militant + ignorant = militantly ignorant. Michael Hardy may be more blunt than you would like, but he's not making personal attacks - he's talking about this AfD. --Cheeser1 (talk) 00:18, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep TheSeven (talk) 15:45, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Comment - I prefer you to place an under-construction tag at this article if you feel that it would become a standard article soon. -- Niaz(Talk • Contribs) 15:55, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I did not know about the under-construction tag. It would take a great deal of work to get the article to a truly good status (because it is intensely debated, from several perspectives). But I will add a bit more, especially references, if it is not deleted.   TheSeven (talk) 17:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
"Under construction" tag serves an entirely different purpose: to avoid edit conflicts if a major work is under way by one editor. The correct tag is "statistics-stub". Arcfrk (talk) 00:12, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Comment - This is not about the history of statistics. I will put this bluntly: if you believe that, then you are unfamiliar with the topic, and so should not be remarking on it. See, for example, the abstracts in the current seminar series on the topic being held at Stanford University (currently only available for the first half of the academic year, yet even that is enough). The topic is vibrant and intensely debated.
Additionally, as the 110,000 google results and several books on the topic make clear, the topic is too large to be properly incorporated in the main article.
TheSeven (talk) 17:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment hard to vote without knowing if waht is meant is the mathematical foundations in probability and analysis, or the philosophical foundations of using statistics, or the historical foundations in political arithmetic and experimental science. JJL (talk) 18:05, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Then don't vote. Ignorant people should not pontificate on topics on which they are ignorant. "Foundations of statistics" is the standard name for philosophical foundations of inductive inference from statistical data. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:50, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep or move to philosophy of statistics. It needs much expansion, but there is a real gap in our coverage here that we should fill. There are 150,000 Google hits for "philosophy of statistics" OR "foundations of statistics" (with quotes and capitals as shown). If the consensus is to merge and redirect, history of statistics is not the right place for the small amount of content currently there; the distinction is somewhat analogous to philosophy of mathematics versus history of mathematics. It doesn't really fit in mathematical statistics and philosophy of probability either, and it has been removed from the statistics article already as excessive detail. -- Avenue (talk) 18:19, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't support a move anymore. The article's apparent focus has changed enough that the current title is more appropriate. -- Avenue (talk) 20:33, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep. This (sub)topic is certainly rich enough for its own article, and an appropriate treatment of it within the main article on statistics would render the latter ill-proportioned. —SlamDiego←T 18:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
    • In addition to my “Keep” above, I say do not move. The present title is optimal, given the history of this subject. —SlamDiego←T 01:00, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep but move to philosophy of statistics. I've been thinking for a while that there should be an article on this. Prefer philosophy of statistics to foundations of statistics to be clear that we're talking about the philosophical foundations, not the mathematical foundations (in probability theory, analysis, vector algebra...). Obviously there's overlap with history of statistics but there is a distinction (just as philosophy of science isn't the same as history of science) - for one thing some of it is still the subject of lively debate (some of which is visible in articles such as statistical hypothesis testing). --Qwfp (talk) 19:04, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Comment - (I am the article creator.) I do not have a strong preference for "foundations of statistics" over "philosophy of statistics". I picked the former because it was more familiar to me, and shows up more in google. There was some brief discussion about that on Talk:Statistics, where I suggested that perhaps both articles should exist, with one redirecting to the other (I don't care which).   TheSeven (talk) 19:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep This is a very very weak article in its present form, but it obviously is a separate topic from "statistics" and requires a separate article. When I say "obviously", I mean of course to those who know something about it; those who say emphatically above that it is not a separate topic and in no way deserves a separate article are loudly advertising their ignorance. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:32, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment "Foundations of statistics", not "philosophy of statistics", is the usual name of the essentially philosophical topic of inductive inference from statistical data. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:37, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep clearly notable, significant coverage, not the same as statistics itself. Move or merge is not really necessary, and I see no strong rationale to do so. --Cheeser1 (talk) 19:34, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep definitely has potential for a substantial article. I'm seeing too many AfD these day happening immediately after an article has been created. It takes time for such an article such as this to develop. Yes there is much which could be said for example the large debate between Bayesians and non-Bayesians, this would fit very well here, yet does not get a mention in statistics. Philosophy of statistics would be a different article entirely. --Salix alba (talk) 20:00, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
  • They are distinct topics, true, so perhaps we should have two separate articles. They have similar numbers of Google hits. My reason for suggesting the latter was that the only real content in the article when this AfD began was Abelson's argument, which seems to me to fit better within a "philosophy of statistics" article than one on "foundations of statistics". But the article has moved onsince then. -- Avenue (talk) 20:33, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep: AfD seems unfounded. CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:07, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep per Michael Hardy, Salix Alba, CRGreathouse. Warn the nominator not to contravene the procedure and to use discretion in tagging new articles, especially, on subjects he is not familiar with. Arcfrk (talk) 00:17, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. There is a lot of stuff written by major statisticians that seems like it fits well under this title. MathSciNet has a subject class, 'Foundations of statistics', code 62A, that was in use from 1973 to 1999. This suggests it's a plausible topic for us to have an article on. Since 1999 the code seems to be 62A01, 'Foundational and philosophical topics.' EdJohnston (talk) 03:44, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Should never have been AfD'd. Paul August ☎ 03:51, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep per Hardy expertise and August point. Tparameter (talk) 04:49, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep and wait to allow the article to develop. Why should a stub be flagged for deletion almost immediately? In addition the editor is obviously qualified, see the plan in the article talk page. Jmath666 (talk) 06:02, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. The present article is egregiously bad, but the topic is important and is rather separate from the topic of statistics by itself, just like the Philosophy of mathematics is distinct from Mathematics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lambiam (talk • contribs) 09:25, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. No reasonable explanation for deletion has been advanced. -- Dominus (talk) 11:14, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep The article would benefit from work from a suitably expert editor, but that is not, in itself, a reason to bring this to a deletion discussion. If a merge is desired, there are procedures available to pursue that goal. But, before pursuing them, I'd advise the nominator to make themself aware of the nature of a foundations topic; a brief look at foundations of mathematics, a more fully developed article, might indicate why such an area can demand a separate article. Sturm 10:05, 3 February 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.