Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gabriel Dover

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. Shadow1 (talk) 22:31, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gabriel Dover

Gabriel Dover (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

I'm nominating three pages under the theorist's name: Gabriel Dover, adoptation, and TRAM (genetic).

No real evidence of Gabriel Dover's notability is provided. However, there is more than just that: There is positive evidence of his non-notability provided by two other pages about him.

TRAM (genetic) says that it stands for Turnover, copy number and funtional Redundancy And Modulatory. Putting that into google gets four hits, none of which have anything to do with the page's claims. I tried Turnover "Redundancy And Modulatory" as well. No hits.

Adoptation. This one's a bit odd: Google corrects its spelling to "adoption" unless you search for it in quotes. Searching for "adoptation" in quotes gets you a lot of typos for adoption; "adoptation" biology gets you typos for adaptation, and "adoptation" Gabriel Dover gets 45 hits, not all of which are relevant.

This seems a pretty clear delete - almost at the speedy level, but I chose the formal process, as the three together form a clearer picture than we'd likely get else. Adam Cuerden ^talk 06:37, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

• Keep ISI web of science indicates Dover's 1982 Nature paper has been cited nearly 1000 times. Articles should be clarified to indicate current status and belief about Dover's ideas, but certainly kept. --TeaDrinker 06:46, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Notable - although the article on "molecular drive" needs to be created, also has written books in his field - article needs referencing, however. --Ozgod 14:10, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
  • There was an article on molecular drive, but it literally was pure nonsense. It probably wasn't intended to be, but there were key words missing, and unfinished thoughts and... basically, so many mistakes made that there was no way to tell what was supposed to be being said. Adam Cuerden ^talk 14:29, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
• Keep the article hides it in the middle, for some unknown reason, but he is Professor of Genetics at the University of Leicester, and theefore very likely indeed to be notable. And of course the ISI count is evidence of the notabiity ofthe work, andf would make him notable even if for some reason he had never done anything else or attained any particular position. In looking for the influence of someone's work, one doesn;t look for the phrase--this is not a novel--one looks for the citations. The inclusion of him in subject articles in WP , though of course not definitive, is usually meaningful, especially because the pages on genetics is maintained very carefully by very knowledgable people. Incidentally, failure to find something in an index is not positive evidence of anything--even when done with an appropriate search in an appropriate index, it's negative evidence Positive evidence would be finding a reference that said he was not notable, or that he did not do the work. Google is very good for some purposes, but failing to find anything in google is meaningless for any work or notability in any field whatsoever before 1998 or so.

Adam therefore did right in bringing it here, as speedy never applies if notability is even asserted in any credible manner; in an open forum the people who know something about the field and the subject has a chance to explain. Dggalt 01:31, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. This page was created by me but I'll weigh in anyway. Gabby Dover is pretty well known for the molecular drive theory, a page on which used to exist (with some references as I recall) and should probably be recreated; as TeaDrinker points out, the Nature paper referenced in this article which proposed the theory is highly cited. Dover has also written a popular science book, cowritten a definitive textbook, and has numerous papers in reputable primary journals as well as reviews. I can tidy what's up there and provide a few more refs, but I'm afraid I'm not competent to review his more recent work; however, references are accessible via Medline (mainly under GA Dover & some under G Dover) for someone more knowledgeable to expand the article. No opinion on TRAM & adoptation, they could probably be usefully subsumed into other articles leaving redirects. Espresso Addict 16:53, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm getting the impression he's a notable scientist somewhat hurt by very poor sub-articles on his theories? Adam Cuerden ^talk 18:58, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

That's my opinion. As I recall, one of the reasons I started the article on Dover was that the molecular drive article badly needed rewriting, and (not being a geneticist) I didn't feel up to the task. Espresso Addict 21:38, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: For reference, annd for a big reason as to why I nominated (it seems incorrectly) here's what appears to be the definition sentence of the old molecular drive article (or, at least, if this isn't the definition, then the article doesn't define the term): "It is a process capable of changing the average genetic conposition of a sexual through the generations as consequence of Non-mendelian inheritance mechanisms." Other sentences were similarly mangled. This sentence was part of a section getting pasted into Evolution and related articles, alerting me to this grouping. Adam Cuerden ^talk 19:07, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I have a copy of a review by Dover, so I'll have a go at defining molecular drive in the article when I get a moment. Espresso Addict 21:38, 28 May 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.