Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dehaene-Changeux Model


 * 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. Courcelles 23:52, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Dehaene-Changeux Model

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Self published NEO. Dennis Brown (talk) 20:31, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * weak delete not a neologism, but fails notability unless some 3rd party citations can be found. Gaijin42 (talk) 20:38, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for clarifying that, "NEO" had me completely mystified. --Crusio (talk) 20:55, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. This article is innocent until proven guilty. While its deletion is being discussed, many third party scholarly references to the "Dehaene-Changeux Model" will be provided. So far it s then not proven that this article is about a self-published subject. besides, I already took care to provide one third party reference.GrandPhilliesFan (talk) 20:40, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid the article is guilty until proven notable; those third party scholarly references are essential to keeping the article. And they should be references to the model described in this article, not to different Dehaene-Changeux models of other neural phenomena. -- 202.124.75.21 (talk) 02:04, 30 October 2011 (UTC) — 202.124.75.21 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Comment I am a bit surprised to see a contribution from a newbie nominated for AfD within a few hours of creation, without any attempt at discussion. I agree with Gaijin42 that the article at this point lacks some secondary/tertiary sources, but knowing Dehaene and Changeux, I'd be surprised if these don't exist (it's bed time here I am, so I'm not going to search for them right now). I suggest withdrawing the nom and moving the article either to the creator's userspace or to the article incubator, where people can work on it until it is ready for prime time. --Crusio (talk) 20:55, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Strongly agree. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡ  bomb  20:56, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It's also a perfectly valid alternative to let this discussion run its course. Pretty sure we can trust the reviewing admin to accurately judge whether any early delete votes were submitted prior to additional sourcing, should additional sourcing be supplied. Either way, I'm not voting on this just yet. ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡ  bomb  21:04, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * A couple of references: Zigmond, Michael J.(1999) Fundamental neuroscience, Academic Press p1551 refers to the Dehaene-Changeux Model and Levine, Daniel S. (2000) Introduction to neural and cognitive modeling, Routledge p332 refers to the Dehaene-Changeux Models (Msrasnw (talk) 21:38, 27 October 2011 (UTC))
 * The Google Scholar search results are mostly just from Dehaene, but are any of those places published in notable?  I know nothing of such things, so I won't comment.  The Wikiproject for Science doesn't have a place to list AFDs at.  What other Wikiprojects could be contacted for this discussion?   D r e a m Focus  23:09, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Behavioural science-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 23:49, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 23:50, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 23:50, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep I think this article is usefull, it is backed by actual text book sources, GrandPhilliesFan appears to have put very much research into this short but informative article, all it needs now are some citations we can reach by internet, I beleive this deserves a fair chance, and at least some time to be improved before the switch is pulled. – Phoenix B 1of3 (talk) 03:55, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete Plenty of self-citations by the authors of this concept, but not much by anybody else: doesn't pass notability criterion. -- 202.124.73.114 (talk) 08:10, 28 October 2011 (UTC) — 202.124.73.114 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * If you click the link to Google Scholar at the top of this page, the very first hit is a 2005 book chapter by Dehaene that has been cited over 700 times (and book chapters normally get very few cites in this field). Dehaene and Changeux are prolific authors, but I don't think they have published 700 articles since 2005, not even together. Ss surely you don't want to argue that these are all self-citations? These two people are among the most highly cited neuroscientists. Changeux is listed in ISIHighlyCited.com. Just have a brief glance at Jean-Pierre Changeux and Stanislas Dehaene. According to the Web of Science, Changeux has been cited almost 50,000 times (h-index of 113) and Dehaene over 18,000 times (h-index of 74). These are not people that engage in excessive self-citations. --Crusio (talk) 09:51, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Their work is, in general, well-cited, but very few people apart from themselves seem to refer to the "Dehaene-Changeux Model(s)." The 726 citations is not to the paper introducing the "Dehaene-Changeux Model," but to follow-up work: it is not the case that the model is being cited 726 times. And I'm not an expert in this area, but it seems the "Dehaene-Changeux Model" discussed in that chapter might be a different model from the one the article is talking about: it seems to me that Dehaene and Changeux collaboratively produced several different models, and that this article is conflating them. -- 202.124.75.21 (talk) 02:00, 30 October 2011 (UTC) — 202.124.75.21 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Epiphany I can only be stunned by that the expeditious and uninformed judgement of a handful of non-experts can bring about the suppression of such a legitimate article. But I guess Human history is just about that anyway... read the Critique of Judgment on your spare time GrandPhilliesFan (talk) 08:20, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Please refrain from commenting on other editors, that is not productive. Concentrate on their arguments instead. As for deletion, the way this debate is going, I'd be baffled if this would be closed as "delete". --Crusio (talk) 09:54, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I find it very productive actually: it is important deletionists face their responsibility and realize the full extent to which they place a de facto entry barrier to knowledge on wikipedia by forcing an article to be perfect upon first delivery. The whole point of wikipedia is to allow unperfect primers to be published for the collective intelligence to improve them bit-by-bit later on. Consider the Mzoli%27s jurisprudence on this, the article turned a very good one although its primer was of course extremely bad. So I sure "forgive them; for they know not what they do" but they need to have their eyes opened as to the consequences of their decisions. As George Patton said "When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick, I give it to them double dirty". Such is the definition of emotions: "what moves you". Cheers --GrandPhilliesFan (talk) 10:38, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Persistent ad hominem remarks will eventually get you blocked from editing. And apart from that, undiscriminating railing against "deletionists" is not productive. Some people are more inclined to !vote delete than others, there is room for legitimate differences of opinion. But even the most ingrained "deletionist" will !vote "delete" from time to time, because some content we get here is clearly non-notable even upon first delivery. To weed out "false positives" we have mechanisms like WP:PROD and WP:AFD, so that before an article actually is deleted, the community can weigh in and, if possible, provide arguments to avoid deletion. If you want people to listen to you, you will have to present your arguments calmly and without "playing on the man". If every time somebody disagrees with you, you start screaming "deletionist", "non-expert who doesn't know what he's talking about", "uninformed judgment", and whatnot, you will in the end find out that your opinions will not be taken very seriously. Just some advice, you're free to take it or not. --Crusio (talk) 10:54, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * you exagerate my position here; besides my comments where not ad hominem but ad populi. Giving metacritics is not my systematic attitude, and you haven't discussed my arguments: de facto speedily rejecting stubs puts an entry barrier on wikipedia, we cannot deny that. I value your opinion though. --GrandPhilliesFan (talk) 11:02, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep: Seems to me sufficient evidence of not being Self published NEO with sufficient sourcing. (Msrasnw (talk) 08:55, 28 October 2011 (UTC))
 * Keep Article needs work, but certainly not "self published NEO". --Crusio (talk) 09:51, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep per Crusio. This is just the sort of article we should be encouraging new editors to write. Looie496 (talk) 14:44, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - Per sources cited above by user:Msrasnw. Nomination's basis as the topic being a self-published neologism is faulty from the start. A three-word nomination to erase information entirely from a digital encyclopedia. Northamerica1000 (talk) 11:43, 30 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep -- for now at least. Give the original contributor a chance! I gather he is still working on it, geez. The original nomination was clearly hasty in my opinion. It's a complicated and highly technical set of ideas which deserve more than deletion because it doesn't conform to the style guidelines yet, forsooth. As a user I would much rather see a somewhat baffling set of sentences that nonetheless express something that might be groundbreaking,than some other Wikipedia pages I have seen. If we can have pages about railway bridge architecture in Bulgaria in the 1930s or whatever - this topic certainly meets *that* rather low bar. Or will, I think, if it's allowed the time to do so. Come *on* people. Wikipedia has hundreds of articles that have some flaw or other that languish uncorrected for years. The author should also get his mind around the inevitability of peer review, btw, and possibly quite scathing review at that.


 * I do not know whether 202.124.73.63 is correct in saying that the contributor confuses two terms, but if he does, he needs to address that. I would however like to point out that while the article may be about work in neuroscience, that work in neuroscience appears to have important implications for cognitive science, an interdisciplinary field where the authorities may be a little hard to come by, especially on writer in a different language. But the article should be added to the portal for computer science. Artificial intelligence would be better if there is a portal for that. Also philosophy or better yet epistemology. (Again, if there is one...). Maybe linguistics if Chomsky is citing him. Maybe education since one of his books is about learning mathematics.... so... guys. Duuuudes. Chill.


 * I just want to say that the fact that I don't quite understand the article as it is today does not mean that its topic is not notable. The same is true of you. I once watched a 60 Minutes interviewer jeer, yes, jeer at Eric Drexler, clearly thinking his tin foil hat was screwed on too tight. But twenty years later, we ALL know what nanotechnology is, even that interviewer. Well, maybe that interviewer, snicker. But sure. The article needs work, and the reader should not have to impute the importance of its topic. But we All that. I can't assess the science. But -- I took a very quick look on Google. I found this: an article than has been cited more than 200 times. That usually means that people in the field think it's authoritative, or at a minimum, worth debunking. There are many others - that's just the one I grabbed from a two-minute google. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0010027789900061.


 * Wikipedia.fr seems to think Dehaene is notable btw, look at this: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislas_Dehaene.


 * They have him categorized as a mathematician, interestingly. I don't have time to translate just now, but the page indicates that he chairs a department at a university that looks important, and belongs to some academies that look pretty mainstream. So I don't think he is a whacko. Noam Chomsky, a well known and even famous linguist, cites him here: http://books.google.com/books?id=G0lJqbM15gsCs. Several times, even. Chomsky doesn't seem to quite agree with him, though -- a super-fast skim gave me the impression that he thinks Dehaene represents conventional wisdom, and interprets his data too narrowly. Just an impression -- I could be wrong. But a further indication that he's not a wild-eyed fringe wingnut.


 * My fast fast assessment is that Dehaene in and of himself likely meets 1, 3 and 5 of WP:SCHOLAR and maybe some other criteria as well. Just one criteria is potentially enough, right? And I didn't even look at the other scientist, nor the specifics of the model. But I saw enough to make me say we should at least not rush to judgment. Some of the problem may be a language barrier, maybe? If so, I am willing to pull in and translate some French language material. But I have other stuff to do and have already said I'd help rewrite a software topic that's been edited into incoherence in a similar dispute. Let's not be those people. I'm leaning to "not notable" in that case, incidentally, so don't think I am just tender-hearted ;0.


 * I have a couple of thoughts for the original contributor but I'll do put them in a new section below below as they or may not be pertinent to the topic and don't so much apply to notability. I'll take a stab at improving the categorization somewhat. I would appreciate it if someone could add it to one or more of the portals I mentioned, or point me at set of instructions. Thanks Elinruby (talk)


 * Realized later that I did not quite spell out my logic, which is that if Dehaene is notable, it's not  incredibly unlikely that a model of his (assuming accuracy; I realized that that's been questioned) would be notable in itself. And the article is only a few days old. Table for now, is my thought. If it's abandoned as-is six months from now I may have a different opinion.


 * Comment The reason that you (and, for that matter, I myself) disagree with this nom is not sufficient grounds for calling into doubt the motives behind this nom. Please assume good faith. --Crusio (talk) 16:25, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't see as where he mentioned their motives at all, just stated the three word nomination was faulty. Nominating something for deletion, means you want to erase/delete it.   D r e a m Focus  16:43, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * To me saying "n to erase information entirely from a digital encyclopedia" implies an assumed intent to damage this project. That's not the same as deleting content that does not belong here. Every day people create articles like "Joey is cool". You're certainly not implying that we should keep this information about Joey. So proposing articles for deletion is in and of itself not an activity damaging to the project. Insinuating more, is calling somebody's motives into question. We don't do that kind of things here. --Crusio (talk) 18:14, 30 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment from Nom Those that did, thank you for assuming good faith. While my quick nom may not be up to regular standards, I still see only self-references in the article, which was my initial and continuing concern. I'm not an expert, but if we can't verify using reliable sources that are not primary sources, there is a criteria "concern" at the very least. Most of us have seen many articles pop up that are based only on primary sources, some are likely fine, others are beyond fringe.  The purpose of requiring wp:v and wp:rs is so you don't have to be an expert to know the difference.  We don't make exceptions because a few editors claim it is important enough for inclusion without verfication (even if they are correct) as this would be a rule ripe for abusing.  Putting all personal issues aside, there is a legitimate concern about the lack of verification from 3rd parties, and this has not changed since the nomination. Dennis Brown (talk) 17:18, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. The article has some clear errors, e.g. confusing a neural network with a Multi-agent system. That lends support to the hypothesis above: that the author may be conflating unrelated models by Dehaene and Changeux. The solution is not to rely on primary sources, but to find a reliable secondary source. If there is no reliable secondary source, the article should be deleted. -- 202.124.73.63 (talk) 00:04, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Demonstrate that these are errors then. The Brain is a decentralized swarm of neurons and glial cells with an evolving connecting rule, synaptic lability and possibly neural darwinism with self-organized patterns being determined as early as through the waves of spontaneous activations in utero. The DCM is merely a set of I&F neurons which are connected in a decentralized way in an attempt to have the set display holistic, self-organized behaviors. since I&F are integrative units they are intelligent. Since there is no rule defining the group behavior while it is composed of intelligent systems it is a Multi-Agent System. Since neurons are programmed in a decentralized way and with a connection rule (just like fish schools by the way) they constitute a swarm. Some neural networks can be multi-agent systems, you have not demonstrated that the two sets do not intersect (and you will not actually). I thus challenge your statement and beg you demonstrate it. --GrandPhilliesFan (talk) 11:36, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * references and proofs. So far you said I was confusing a MAS with a neural network. This is like saying I am confusing a square with a rhombus. the DCM is a neural network which is also a MAS and a Swarm, just like a square is also a rhombus. Here are other references about neural networks that are MAS:
 * Roya Asadi, Norwati Mustapha, Nasir Sulaiman, A Framework For Intelligent Multi Agent System Based Neural Network Classification Model (IJCSIS) International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2009
 * Ying Xu;  Mural, R.J.;   Einstein, J.R.;   Shah, M.B.;   Uberbacher, E.C.; GRAIL: a multi-agent neural network system for gene identification Proceedings of the IEEE Oct 1996 84 Issue:10 1544 - 1552
 * Yong S. Choi, Suk I. Yoo , Multi-agent learning approach to WWW information retrieval using neural network IUI '99 Proceedings of the 4th international conference on Intelligent user interfaces p23 - 30
 * Minar, N., R. Burkhart, C. Langton, and M. Askenazi. 1996. The Swarm simulation system: A toolkit for building multi-agent simulations. Working Paper 96-06-042, Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe.
 * K.G. Jolly K.P. Ravindran, R. Vijayakumar,  R. Sreerama Kumar, Intelligent decision making in multi-agent robot soccer system through compounded artificial neural networksRobotics and Autonomous Systems Volume 55, Issue 7, 31 July 2007, Pages 589-596

Cheers --GrandPhilliesFan (talk) 11:47, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * It's possible to have a MAS containing one or more agents which are neural networks; but individual neurons are not agents. You appear to have misunderstood the literature in that list. I suspect you might perhaps also have misunderstood the Dehaene-Changeux literature, because the phrase "Dehaene-Changeux model" has been used for their Wisconsin card sort model as well as for other work. If those different models are fundamentally the same, the article should justify its title by explaining why. -- 202.124.72.1 (talk) 14:05, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * This is why we require references from secondary sources and can't rely exclusively on primary sources or the opinions of the editors themselves, in relation to contentious facts. In general, when the addition of any contentious fact is disputed and no secondary sources can be found to back up the claims of the fact, said fact is removed until it can be verified.  Unlike a court of law, the burden is on the individual who is introducing the fact (or the article) to demonstrate that the information can be verified by an outside, reliable source.  But that is really an issue for the talk page of the article, not here at AFD. This is another reason the article is problematic as it has been shown to have no secondary references, thus every addition or change has the potential to degrade into a pissing contest.  The sources you provide may or may not prove your point on one singular fact, but are not relative to the notability of the article itself.  Again, please take this type of content discussion to the talk page of the article, it isn't related to this AFD.  Dennis Brown (talk) 11:55, 3 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz Humbug! 07:01, 4 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. Google Scholar shows that the Three parietal circuits for number processing by Dehaene and others has 730 citations. Two non-Dehaene GS results on page 1 show 21 to 36 citations each. This topic has great academic importance based on the numerous citations on Dehaene and Changeux-related works. I see 228 citations, 131 citations, 67 citations and so forth on various, reputable academic presses. GuterTag (talk) 09:15, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, but is the numerosity model referred to in that paper the same as the model described in this article? -- 202.124.73.39 (talk) 07:28, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
 * No, it is not. The PLoS paper from which the diagram in the article was taken confirms that this model is different from the other models ("In previous neuronal modeling studies and computer simulations, we illustrated the possible contribution of spontaneous activity to tasks that involve a random search, such as the learning of a temporal sequence, the search for and selection of the correct rule in the delayed response and Wisconsin card-sorting tests, or the discovery of a multistep solution in the Tower of London test.") Most of the citations listed by "keep" !voters apply to those previous models, not to the model described by the diagram in the article. -- 202.124.73.2 (talk) 08:26, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I currently have no time to check that PLoS paper myself, but the phrase you cite does not in any way indicate that a different model is being used. All it means is that in that paper this model is either described or expanded upon. It doesn't say anything like "we abandoned that model and developed another one". --Crusio (talk) 10:33, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Dehaene and Changeux do explicitly say in the PLoS paper that, although they build on past work, the model in the PLoS paper is a new one. The article would be a clear "Keep" if it was about their work generally, since it is notable as a body, but at present the article relates on conflating different things. -- 202.124.73.69 (talk) 02:36, 7 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. there are plenty of reliable references available. The article itself is well supported with citations. The subjects Dehaene and Changeux appear to be highly reputable scientists, more than Notable. The Topic is surely worthy of Inclusion. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:26, 4 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep per sources. --Cavarrone (talk) 10:29, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep, certainly seems to have received requisite appropriate coverage in a multitude of reliable sources. &mdash; Cirt (talk) 18:47, 7 November 2011 (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.