Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Myron Evans

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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 of the debate was no consensus. bainer (talk) 09:37, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Myron Evans

Delete. Article appears to be original research, and subject of article is non-notable. Srleffler 03:00, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Qualifying this a bit: the article has been rewritten to focus on Evans' biography. It is no longer "original research", and it may well be the case that Evans is a notable crackpot. Those who read the article early in the afd process might want to take another look and see if it changes their vote.--Srleffler 04:44, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Comment. The link to the argument about Wikipedia not needing notability requirements makes the above essentially an argument for deleting this page. If even the page's supporters admit that the subject is not notable, the page is surely deletable under current policy.--Srleffler 06:04, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
At the time of my original vote, I was unaware that speedy deletion was mandated for articles not asserting the importance of an individual. I'm not happy with this policy, frankly, and I don't think it actually has consensus at this point (it only ever passed with 74% support, less than that required to make someone an admin), but I recognize that we can't very well allow individual editors to question policy because they don't think it has consensus (WP:IAR aside).
So let me change my reasoning in this case: Dr. Evans appears to have some hundreds of Google hits (some of the 1,150 appear to be talking about another Myron Evans but most seem to be referring hto the man in question), he has 59 Google Scholar hits. He is not, of course, profoundly notable, but he's certainly modestly notable at least. My vote remains keep. —Simetrical (talk) 07:55, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Appears to be vanity, content is disputed. | Klaw ¡digame! 04:48, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Weak Delete, not speedy. This is probably pseudoscience but appears to have close to sufficent visibility to be worth documenting. It has 10000 Google hits (but only 150 unique hits). Claimed books do exist, though publisher appears to be some sort of vanity press. ManoaChild 06:13, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, the current article is an unverifiable laudatio for a crackpot. Writing an encyclopedic article about Evans can as well start with an empty edit box. He has some Usenet and Web notability, in diverse lists of crackpots. Compare point 25 in John Baez' crackpot index. --Pjacobi 09:05, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Weak keep, per citation in Google Scholar. Much cleanup needed, and verification of Civil List Pension and reasons therefore.--SarekOfVulcan 09:55, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Weak delete per User:ManoaChild. PJM 12:38, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, at least in part a copyvio (first paragraph comes from Americanantigravity.com. I suspect based on the lack of wikification and the general tone that the rest if copyvio'ed as well.- Mgm|(talk) 12:51, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Weak keep, per SarekOfVulcan comment. J. D. Redding 14:25, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Undecided - the article as written is grossly unencyclopaedic and the chances of some scientist nobody has ever heard of developing the Grand Unifying Theory at that age is very small indeed (most scientists seem to do their best and most visionary work when young). Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 15:24, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Peeper 16:40, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete this is a hoax, or whacked, or both. Eusebeus 17:08, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • small Thimble full of keep rewrite about the person, mention the theory and link outside WP, else delete  J\/\/estbrook       20:27, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete as hoax. Ifnord 20:57, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep He really did win the Harrison Memorial Prize in 1978, he really is (was) the editor of ISBN 0471304999 a very boring and worthy book, plus some others. Just becasuse he later came up with a possibly dubious GUT doesntmean we should not have an article on him. Rich Farmbrough 23:41, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete per nominator. Edwardian 08:19, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete per nomination. --ScienceApologist 19:12, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep Wikipedia's own definition of an Encyclopedia is 'An encyclopedia (alternatively encyclopaedia) is a written compendium of knowledge.' If this article is not knowledge highly relevant to the whole human race, I'll eat my hat! Solmil 23:51, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Would you like your hat served with tartar sauce or plain? --ScienceApologist 15:58, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Heh, my thoughts exactly. Note that User:Solmil is the original author of the disputed article, which is not, unfortunately, an attempted hoax.---CH 01:05, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. The prize and scholarship makes him notable, though I'd be happier if the article were more heavily focused on him, and if the section on his theory included language indicating that it's not widely accepted within the scientific community. -Colin Kimbrell 21:46, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. Certainly, Evans is a classic crackpot. (Einstein and Cartan are rolling in their graves.) But is he even notable? The Harrison Memorial Prize and apparently indistinguishable Mendola Memorial Prize are awarded annually "to a British Chemist who is under 30 years of age for promising original investigations in chemistry", according to Royal Society of Chemistry list of prizes. Is this really a sufficiently notable prize? RSC lists a very long list of prizes at their website, check it out. As for a scholarship, I dare say most commentators have recieved one of those at one time or another. I have been utterly unable to verify the claims about affiliation with Cornell Theory Center, etc., although this is mentioned at a large number of websites like American Antigravity, Free Energy News whose reliability is... suspect :-) I did find however that Myron Evans is one of these charming fellows who likes to take legal action to discourage debunkers. Check this out: Myron Evans Censorship Rebuttal. The "AIAS" which Evans mentions is something called the Alpha Institute of Advanced Studies, an organization directed by himself. At least some of the prizes he claims on his C.V. appear to have been awarded by... AIAS! Hence the need for independent verification of alleged notability. The UW library does have three monographs coauthored by Myron Wyn Evans. All in all, it seems very clear that if we decide that Evans' contributions to chemistry are notable (I'd guess they are not, unless we want to have a biography of everyone who has coauthored a technical book, but I'm not a chemist), then the article needs to be rewritten to clarify the dubious nature of Evans's crackpot claims about free-energy and his so-called "theory".---CH 23:12, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Comment: I was using "scholarship" in the sense of "body of scholarly effort produced by an academic". In particular, I was referring to some of his books and papers. The article could stand a few edit sessions, there's no question about that, but I think a deletion might be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. -Colin Kimbrell 00:21, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Colin, we might be getting off the track, but did you notice that your Google Scholar search includes papers from Evans own site which apparently have not been published? So evidently you must be cautious in using Google Scholar to verify claims in suspect WP articles: there is certainly no guarantee that what you turn up there is even referreed, much less appeared in a respectable research journal. (Even then, of course, as the Bogdanov affair shows, problems can arise.) Also, AFAIK there is no "Evans lemma in gtr" except in his mind, and I think I know the gtr literature pretty well. What are your standards for notability? Simply having published a scholarly book or some papers? I think we need to maintain a higher standard than that, while perhaps not setting the bar as high as Brittanica. Still, I don't think you've answered the question: I see evidence for the dirty bathwater, but where's the baby?---CH 00:57, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Comment: Some of those books and papers are self-published and/or self-referential, but others are legitimate (like this one, for example). The question is whether there are enough legitimate accomplishments remaining after a thorough sort to make Mr. Evans notable. I personally believe that there are, but of course you're free to differ. -Colin Kimbrell 19:32, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
In general, I'd like to see a higher standard of notability, but recognize that many do not agree. I can suggest a compromise solution for what to do with this article, although I hesitate to suggest it because I've had a bad experience in a similar context.
Question for all participants in this discussion: would you find it acceptable if some user were to rewrite the article to describe Evan's work in chemistry, which appears to be "mainstream" (it would be best if whoever does this were a chemist! or at least checks with a knowledgeable chemist), plus the Harrison Prize, followed by a brief WP:NPOV description of what I would call his "cranky" claims? It should be possible to briefly describe those claims in NPOV fashion, adding a dry disclaimer such as: this "theory" appears to be little known in physics, and is apparently regarded as cranky by those physicists who do know about it. (Whoever did this would probably want to omit the "scare quotes", but I can't bring myself to apply the word "theory" to these particular claims without qualification!) Keep the external links so that readers easily find both Evan's writings and critiques of his writings.
Assuming there is a consensus that this would be a reasonable compromise, someone could volunteer to make the changes. But probably only an admin should volunteer for this kind of content cleanup job!---CH 22:44, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Maybe. First, I would want to know if Evans is actually notable as a chemist. If not, he may still be a notable crackpot, but in that case the article would have to focus on his theories, his efforts to promote them, and the scientific community's view of his work. In other words, if he is notable, the article should focus on discussing whatever it is that makes him notable.
I don't see why you think it would be necessary or even helpful for an admin to do this. Admins are not that different from ordinary editors.--Srleffler 23:11, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree with this comment. If he is notable - for whatever reason, including being a notable crackpot or controversial theorist - he deserves an article. The quality of the article is not really relevant; there is sufficent content and AfD is not cleanup. I simply don't see enough to convince me that he is notable. His tendency to self publish and self award actually works against him here, because it makes it difficult to separate out his actual accomplishments. The Harrison Memorial award seems to be significant, but it isn't clear to me that it is important enough by itself to justify an article. ManoaChild 20:53, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, that's why I suggested obtaining confirmation from a neutral chemist that Evans could reasonably be considered notable for his chemistry work. Again tending to want to set the notability bar higher than some, I doubt Evans should be notable purely as a crank, since the only references I could find to his "theory" were on crank websites, which I suspect are very little known except to the tiny tiny minority of freelunchers. However, I am searching for a compromise with Colin, so while I myself would not include a biography of Evans, including one emphasizing his mainstream(?) work at the expense of his obscure crackpottery still seems to me an acceptable compromise.---CH 12:52, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
The problem with the re-write proposed by CH, is the amount of watching, reverting, RfCing, RFAring (and sobbing) which is needed to keep it this way. Look at our fine perpetuum mobiles at Adams Motor, Motionless Electrical Generator, or Testatika. The antigravity department at Hutchinson effect and Lifter. Theory department at Scalar field theory, Autodynamics, Hydrino theory, Electric Universe. O.K. most of them seem to be under control in the moment. But they are always a threat to Wikipedia's reputability [1].
Pjacobi 13:31, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
CH's suggestion sounds like a good idea to me. -Colin Kimbrell 21:55, 21 December 2005 (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.