Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Pseudomathematics

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. — CharlotteWebb 23:25, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pseudomathematics

There are around 850 google hits for this topic, of which over a third appear to be from Wikipedia articles and mirrors. Around 130 unique hits. The article itself is unreferenced, in that the few references mentioned do not appear to mention the term. Some of the article is concerned with bona-fide mathematics, unprovable thjeorems etc., but most of it reads very much like original research, possibly as a thinly-veiled attack on certain controversial individuals. In any case this looks like a substantially unreferenced article under a neologist title. Guy 13:41, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

• Delete, as per nom, unless proper sources are provided. PJM 14:02, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep: useful topic, well-written article. The name of the article may not be the best one, but the content is good. CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:48, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - there's lots of encyclopaedic content in there, and I'm sure we can dig up a few citations (I'm pretty sure I have at least one or two at home). It certainly is a real phenomenon (albeit the name choice is slightly odd) and it isn't really an attack page against anyone, for instance we do have Pseudoscience, a perfectly neutral term (if one is honest). WilyD 17:06, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep it needs references, but the content itself appears to be worthwhile in principle.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.98.212.164 (talk • contribs)
• keep presuming that it gets better sourcing. Underwood Dudley wrote a series of books about this and related topics which would probably provide good sourcing [1] [2] [3] . The idea also shows up in John Allen Paulos' "A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper" JoshuaZ 20:17, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
• What, no mention of the 0.99999...≠1 cranks? Anyway this article describes a widespread and notable phenomenon; keep. Many of the topics are adequately sourced via the links to other more specific WP entries, but more sourcing would help. —David Eppstein 01:46, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
• It's badly named, but Keep it. I just added the Dudley and Pickover refs. Michael Kinyon 12:55, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

• Can you suggest the correct title? Guy 12:19, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• Actually, I've changed my mind. A search on Google Scholar [4] suggests that perhaps the name is not so bad. In any case, I cannot think of a more viable alternative. The meaning is clear; it's just pseudoscience restricted to the domain of mathematics. Michael Kinyon 16:29, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• I've changed my mind as well; I think the name's pretty good. CRGreathouse (t | c) 17:01, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• Keep: it needs more work, but that's no reasons to wipe it. - Palfrey 02:09, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep as above. This covers the mathematics of pseudoscience and while the term may not be overly common on google (and lets face it - those who engage in it are hardly likely to describe their work as "pseudo-") the concept is still relevant. michaelCurtis ^talk+ _{contributions} 22:12, 26 September 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.