Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Advancement of Sound Science Center


 * 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.   A rbitrarily 0   ( talk ) 01:58, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Advancement of Sound Science Center

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No proof of notability, current ref`s seem to be primary documents. Full of OR which i have removed along with content sourced to dead domains. mark nutley (talk) 10:19, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete per nomination. The underlying subject is apparently a minor pressure group.  This article is a hatchet job about that minor pressure group: ... denounces research on environmental issues such as climate change, pollution and public health as junk science if it produced results suggesting a need for public intervention or regulation. He promoted the idea of sound science, interpreted in practice to mean science favorable to corporate interests. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 14:37, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions.  Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 14:37, 23 July 2010 (UTC)


 * I found a couple sources that mention this group: Washington Post, USA Today book review of Mechants of Doubt, presumably in Merchants of Doubt, Toronto Star, Mother Jones. Minor mention in all of them; I don't see how we could write an article about it. Has not been the subject of significant coverage in reliable secondary sources. Fails WP:ORG. I don't know if there is anything worth merging to the Steven Milloy article, otherwise, redirect to Milloy as possible search term, per WP:PRESERVE . Changing to keep in light of peer-reviewed medical sources provided by Mastcell. -Atmoz (talk) 20:53, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Keep. WP:GNG is clearly satified - TASSC has had significant coverage in numerous independent reliable sources including The New York Times (, reviewing a book by Chris Mooney), a book by Clive Hamilton, the New Scientist ( - "Other corporate tactics include the creation of phoney grassroots organisations. The pioneer was The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC) ...") and The Guardian.

The nominator's statement about "current ref`s" notwithstanding, it is also worth examining the numerous sources removed by himself immediately prior to the nomination. For example,the Center for Science in the Public Interest's publications are widely used as external links and references elsewhere on Wikipedia, I don't understand why their article on the topic was removed. It cites further reliable sources, e.g. Village Voice (online copy) and the Tulsa World.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 17:38, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It was removed as it is an advocacy site making claims about a BLP, such a source is not allowable under wp:blp As were a lot of other sources removed. mark nutley (talk) 17:44, 23 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the explanation, but I don't think this interpretation of WP:BLP applies here. In any case, it certainly does not apply to the ten other reliable sources that have been listed on this page by now, including two books by reputed publishers - Earthscan (ISBN 9781849710817) and Basic Books (ISBN 9780465046751). Many more book sources can be found using Google Book Search - it seems that TASSC has literally become a textbook example for this kind of organization. Regards, HaeB (talk) 18:08, 23 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Clear keep and rewrite: There appear to be sufficient reliable sources to meet notability criteria. Guardian 2006 describes TASSC's founding by Philip Morris' PR firm. The New Republic 2006 similarly covers TASSC. Although I have not read Merchants of Doubt, it appears that there is significant non-trivial coverage of TASSC therein (see review from USAToday). (If the article is kept, I will acquire a copy of the book to see what, if anything, would be appropriate for Wikipedia). TASSC is also discussed in the peer-reviewed medical literature. See (free text from PubMed Central), an article from the American Journal of Public Health, and the accompanying editorial in the same journal. TASSC is similarly covered in  (article from The Lancet, 2000). That's without getting into more borderline secondary sources, or the wealth of primary sources available at the University of California, San Francisco tobacco-documents archive. There is clearly enough solid secondary sourcing here to meet notability criteria and build an encyclopedic article, although the current text needs a substantial rewrite. MastCell Talk 18:29, 23 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep for notability, per MastCell. BigK HeX (talk) 07:11, 24 July 2010 (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.