Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barzilai paradox


 * 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 delete. Neıl ☎  14:38, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Barzilai paradox

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Promotion of work that is not notable, not peer-reviewed, and nowhere simultaneously original and correct. —SlamDiego&#8592;T 02:55, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. I don't know enough to say whether the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Press is peer reviewed, or whether they would be an appropriate place to establish a mathematical concept in game theory as peer reviewed.  I will say that I turned up one person who absolutely hates this guy.  A professor at Columbia named David Krantz has an eight-page working paper from 2005 on his site that criticizes just about everything one could about him, including this paradox.  Krantz works off of a paper of Barzilai's presented at the 2004 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, which isn't listed as a reference in the article but may have been superseded by the ASME Press book; in my field, acceptance of a paper at a conference counts for absolutely nothing in terms of peer-review, but I understand that this may be different in engineering; GScholar shows three citations of this paper, one of which is Barzilai's and another that is unintelligible.  In any case, Krantz's bile might or might not speak to notability, an engineer would have to speak to peer review, and I don't believe that a concept's being "nowhere simultaneously original and correct" is currently listed as a criterion for deletion. RJC Talk 04:26, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: Being simultaneously original and correct would speak to notability. Being correct would speak to whether it were pseudo-science, and to how the article currently presents its subject; the article could in theory be amended (rather than simply deleted) to compensate for the incompetence of the work. (Lack of notability would remain a problem.) —SlamDiego&#8592;T 06:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: The Barzilai paradox is part of Barzilai's work with regards to his research into the mathematical foundations of utility theory, decision theory and measurement theory. Krantz is one of the authors of the book "Foundations of Measurement" which is part of measurement theory. Barzilai has found errors in measurement theory, especially with its mathematical foundation. He produced a new theory of measurement that does have a mathematical foundation. Please note that there is no proof in literature that the operations of addition and multiplication apply to the scales produced by classical measurement theory. His work is of importance and notable because of its implications in all fields that relate to measurement theory including utility theory, decision theory, measurement theory and economics. The 2004 IEEE paper indeed superseded the ASME Press book. I would appreciate some feedback on how to prevent deletion. Ruud Binnekamp (talk) 12:36, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: As a beginning, find and cite examples of Barzilai being published in peer-reviewed publications of economics or of psychology, which are the fields to which his theory would apply. —SlamDiego&#8592;T 12:45, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, I for one would settle for a reliable source (not written by Barzilai) calling the Barzilai paradox by that name. If such a source exists, we can discuss notability, which is a more subjective criterion. If it does not, then notability is irrelevant since even the name does not qualify for inclusion per WP:NEO. --Zvika (talk) 14:14, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The Krantz paper referred to above calls the paradox by its name. Ruud Binnekamp (talk) 14:45, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The Krantz paper fails as a reliable source: it is just an attack posted on his webpage.  Something other than that would be necessary to show that this is not a neologism often-repeated by Barzilai in papers which get published for demonstrating something modestly related to it.  RJC Talk 17:16, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The Krantz paper uses this name with quotes, implying that this is not an accepted term. Sorry, I'm not convinced. [It also says this "paradox" is nothing more than wordplay, but we agreed to focus on terminology rather than content for now.] --Zvika (talk) 20:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * And, just a reminder, WP:NEO sets a much higher bar than a single paper. --agr (talk) 20:44, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete: One independent GScholar ref does not establish notability and also the title appears to be a neologism (see WP:NEO). I would encourage the nominator to drop the "nowhere simultaneously original and correct" claim as it is a potential distraction as RJC suggests. --agr (talk) 06:53, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: Okay. I don't need to fight that battle here, so I've withdrawn that part. —SlamDiego&#8592;T 10:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * delete I see no citations of this work in the ISI World of Knowledge, nor does "Barzilai paradox" generate any WoS hits. I think this means there's no scientific equivalent of "widespread coverage" of the topic in reliable secondary sources required by WP:N.  I see no strong evidence that anyone but Barzilai himself is working with this idea, therefore no evidence that it's notable. Pete.Hurd (talk) 07:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Looks like a neologism to me. --Zvika (talk) 08:49, 17 January 2008 (UTC) I hereby withdraw my vote. --Zvika (talk) 08:51, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Objection to deletion I would like to register an objection to deletion because the reasons given for deletion are baseless. Also, Krantz's personal attack is ugly and so is the insistence on referencing it. Ruud Binnekamp (talk) 01:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply: Baseless? Where are the references to peer-reviewed work by Barzilai or to peer-reviewed work by others about the ostensible paradox? (Krantz's personal attack isn't particularly ugly, and amounts to no more than calling Barzilai on his failure to actually attend to the literature.  Meanwhile that failure causes Barzilai to claim that Krantz &alii have ignored issues that they have instead discussed at length; Barzilai's work is no less a personal attack, but in his case the attack is quite mistaken.) —SlamDiego&#8592;T 03:11, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment Let's try to keep this discussion civil and constructive. Ruud, I said above that if you can find at least one WP:RS, not written by Barzilai, which calls Barzilai's paradox by that name, then that would be a step in showing that this article is not WP:NEO. Can you provide such a reference? The others in this discussion have not been able to do so. --Zvika (talk) 07:09, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment. This article should stay. The paradox is original, it doesn't matter what the name of the paradox is but it was proposed by Barzilai.  The contradiction brought out by the paradox is glaring.  Saying that it is not original and correct is either an indication of lack of understanding of mathematical logic or an indication of bias or both.  The papers in the reference section have been presented in conferences, workshops and seminars beginning earlier than 2004, including Dalhousie University's Industrial Engineering and Math departments, the Math department at Waterloo, before a Math/Economics/Business audience and Mathematicians and Game theorists at Tel Aviv University and the Technion, the Math dept. at Haifa University and many international meetings including the annual meetings of the Soc. for Mathematical Psychology in 2005, 2006, 2007. Barzilai also introduced his work in the Canadian OR Society(CORS) Bulletin and in other distribution lists. This is the ultimate form of peer review - in the open as opposed to the journal forum which usually has a few anonymous referees. Anonymous refereeing is only one form of peer review and is susceptible to abuse. The intrinsic contradiction shown in the paradox is important to decision theory, utility theory, operations research, economics, measurement theory, and mathematical psychology. There is no merit to the claim that this is "not notable". Assuming that the page is not deleted, material such as a numerical example, more details in the context, etc., will be added. Uvenkata (talk) 14:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Request for clarification. Since I assume that you know something about this topic, I was wondering if you could provide some clarification regarding peer-review and the like.  Papers presented at invited lectures don't count as reliable sources, and I'm assuming that conference papers are accepted on the basis of an abstract, not as the result of peer review.  What I am interested in, however, is whether any of Barzilai's work that deals primarily with the existence of this paradox has been accepted for publicaiton 1) in a peer-reviewed journal or academic press and 2) in a journal in the field of game theory/decision theory.  I would also like to know whether anyone else has referred to the Barzilai paradox in peer-reviewed media in the field.  Your statements about "true peer-review" do not persuade me (I'm an academic), and do not lend credence to the existence of proper sources.  (P.S., could you condense your comment to a single paragraph?  I think it is resulting in some strange formatting in mine) RJC Talk 16:32, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Clarification: Wikipedia does say that it needs a reliable source. Nowhere does it say that this implies a peer-reviewed article.  Nor does that need to be in Decision Theory or Game Theory.  The ASME press paper is peer-reviewed.  The IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics paper is on the record, it is published.  Nowhere in any *reliable* outlet have these published works (these are Scientific outlets) been refuted.  I don't understand the fuss! Moreover, Decision Theory is extremely important to Engineering (ASME and IEEE included).  Preference modelling (utility?) is the basis for Engineering Design. So why can't we accept that the ASME Press as a significant outlet? How do we define 'reliable' then?  The debate was originated by a user who claimed that the paradox is unreliable because it is unrefereed and then refers to unrefereed posting by Krantz on his (Krantz's) website (the Krantz paper does not appear in a scientific publication).  To say that this is illogical is an understatement.Uvenkata (talk) 22:47, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply 1: The criticisms by Krantz paper have not been invoked in arguing for deletion. The Krantz paper was noted here by RJC no more than to illustrate the paucity of outside references to Barzilai's work, at a point where RJC had apparently not settled on an opinion about deletion.  The only editor who has thus far attempt to have the Krantz paper weigh in the question of deletion is Ruud Binnekamp, who argued against deletion based on the Krantz paper.  You need to be far more careful before asserting that your adversaries are illogical. (If you wish to argue the issue, separate from that of deletion, of what references should be included in the article while it lacks appropriately peer-reviewed references, then please do so at Talk:Barzilai paradox, not here.) —SlamDiego&#8592;T 08:58, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Reply 2: It might be useful to have explicit distinctions drawn between merely [1] being submitted to review, and [2] publication in a peer-reviewed volume. Knowing that something were submitted to review wouldn't tell us that it had passed review; submitted work can fail review.  Publication in a peer-reviewed volume shows that the work passed review.  And peer review involves review by the relevant experts.  It won't do to note that engineers use decision theory &mdash; everybody uses decision theory. (My father, who was an engineer at one of the most prestigious engineering institutions, was certainly no expert on abstract decision theory.) Imagine a supposedly revolutionary work of fundamental mathematics that were only published in a volume of accountancy and never discussed in any journals of mathematics.  Certainly accountants use mathematics (it's the foundation of accounting), but that doesn't make them peers. (Worse still if we didn't even get the non-expert opinions of the accountants.) And note that the issue is attention.  If a significant controversy about Barzilai's work played-out in peer-reviewed journals, then it would be notable work even if refuted.  Instead, the peer-reviewed journals aren't refuting it in the more general context that they are paying no attention of any sort to it. —SlamDiego&#8592;T 11:27, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete In reading the article, without considering the lack of independent references, I cannot see how this concept is notable. The only paradox here is why would someone consider writing an article about a concept that seems to be only mentioned in a book written by a person after which the paradox is named. Alan.ca (talk) 20:38, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete. Non-notable neologism.  There are no reliable sources suggesting that the paradox described is real; arguments to the contrary invite us to ignore reliable source and Verifiability in not demanding peer review from within the discipline, which seems to speak against rather than for its passing No original research.  After repeated requests, no one has produced any peer-reviewed sources which discuss the concept other than its creator.  The best that opponents of deletion have done is to note that Barzilai himself has managed to get a paper in which the paradox was discussed published in a mildly-related venue, but given the fact that it seems to have been largely disregarded, this seems insufficient to establish notability.  RJC Talk Contribs 23:51, 21 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete. I could find no evidence of any reactions by other scholars to Barzilai's paradox other than David Krantz's paper. A scientific idea that, several years after its conception, does not occur in a single publication other than those of its author just doesn't meet our usual notability criteria for such terms. The notability criteria for science topics are already lower than those for many other topics, but we can't include every little bit. It can't see how it would meet any other criteria, either. E.g. just one scholar debunking it in an unpublished paper is not enough controversy to make it notable. Of course all this can change in the future. --Hans Adler (talk) 01:35, 22 January 2008 (UTC) [Modified byHans Adler (talk) 11:42, 22 January 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.