Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Intelligent design (historical)


 * 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. Mark Arsten (talk) 17:54, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Intelligent design (historical)

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This is a fork of intelligent design, which is a WP:FRINGE topic and liable to be WP:POVFORKed. Consensus on talk page was redirect to teleological argument. Barney the barney barney (talk) 14:36, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * (a) Deletion done after somebody altered topic section from history of debates and 19th century usages to say it was teleology and led to Discovery Institute. Since this (historical) is back to emphatically saying 19th century usage NOT main page topic intelligent design and NOT Discovery Institute.  Reversed that edit and undid redirect. And please give it more than half a holiday weekend for examination of people. Markbassett (talk) 15:06, 3 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep Putting here summary of the pre-existing reasons as given in Talks: Putting a disambiguation alternate topic of 19th century then-common usage of the phrase.  Chosen since main article being explicitly and only the recent Discovery Institute flavor is not the same concept and DI drew from the NASA or Science uses as a nice-sounding label, not from the 19h century debate history.  See Talk.  I thought that candidates for this topic Reaction to On the Origin of Species or History of the creation–evolution controversy seemed close to appropriate, but that a standalone article might be better sticking either of those with this as a sub-section.  The existing intelligent design has already decided this material is not a fork of it and does not belong there.  A subsection of concept after Watchmaker would be a third candidate, but still think better as separate isolated topic than sticking it into any of those.  Markbassett (talk) 15:48, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete (or redirect). There are 2 articles already for this subject: teleological argument and intelligent design. Discussion about that (in my opinion) POV forking is taking place mainly for now on the intelligent design talkpage, but in any case certainly does not show room for a third article. The focus upon the 19th century seems very much based on original research and is WP:UNDUE.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:52, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Merge to the article named Intelligent Design Wait, probably eventually delete There are numerous significant problems with the ID-related articles (particularly the ID article) currently being discussed. And I applaud Markbassett's good faith efforts to get the missing material covered somewhere; the problems that they noted are certainly valid. But  Andrew Lancaster's research, reasoning and impartiality has been immensely good as is their reasoning for "delete" one post up.  I think that his recommendations elsewhere essentially are to merge.  North8000 (talk) 16:16, 3 September 2013 (UTC) North8000 (talk) 14:18, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Merge to Intelligent design. This is just background information on how the expression has been used.  It's normal for an article on a complex, or controversial, topic to have a paragraph or two on this. Borock (talk) 17:35, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Good suggestion but FYI a group there has been removing / excluding historical information from the Intelligent Design article. They are proponents of having that article refer only to the version promoted by the Discovery Institute. North8000 (talk) 02:40, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * It would be easier to defend one section in that article than a whole new article, it seems to me anyway. There does seem to be a lot of overlap between Intelligent design, Teleological argument, Creationism, Creation science, and probably lots of other articles on the general topic. Borock (talk) 05:49, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I think that you are right in both of your posts. I was just pointing out one "roadblock" to your idea.  North8000 (talk) 14:22, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Where are your sources showing that this has relation to the topic of intelligent design keeping in mind WP:NOTDICDEF? IRWolfie- (talk) 11:55, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Merge with Intelligent design per . In reply to your question,, although you were not addressing me I note that the article up for deletion states that in historic use [ID=God], whereas the ID article asserts that current usage does not specify "God".  The latter article says in its body that
 * "Whether this lack of specificity about the designer's identity in public discussions is a genuine feature of the concept, or just a posture taken to avoid alienating those who would separate religion from the teaching of science, has been a matter of great debate between supporters and critics of intelligent design. The Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District court ruling held the latter to be the case."
 * As drafted, the article proposed for deletion definitively states that one side of that debate is correct (and implicitly that the other is not). That sure sounds like a POVFORK taking sides in this public debate.  If there are problems with NPOV treatment of the historic usage of the phrase in the article about the phrase, then involved eds should make greater reliance on RSs, WP:FOC, and make effective use of the increasing levels of WP:DR.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:38, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:57, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:57, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
 * For wikipedia-ish style, does it not make more sense to use disambiguation and keep each article to it's defined subject ? Would think that having ID (DI flavor) contain subparagraphs about ID (the music album), ID (the NASA usage), ID (the 19th century), etcetera is a lot of digressions and length better handled as separate articles or subsections in other articles. Markbassett (talk) 15:56, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * That would be the case if WP:Not a dictionary was strictly enforced. However many articles have sections giving the background of how the title of the article came to be or on alternative related useages. Without checking I would guess that Communism, Citizenship, and for that matter Evolution would have this kind of material.  After all the concept of evolution existed before Darwin, although with different meanings - but related. Borock (talk) 18:24, 5 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete as an original essay. Carrite (talk) 04:03, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Weak delete It does look like original research, since all the references are pre 1900. I'd expect this to be discussed in reliable sources but unless there are actually modern references about the history of the expression I don't think this article meets WP policies. It does look like somebody's just typed "intelligent design" into Google Books and copied out the results, rather than reporting something that is already discussed in reliable sources. Dictionaries report usage of an expression through time, encyclopedias describe concepts. --Colapeninsula (talk) 09:36, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The article appears to be purely based on OR based on counting use of words in a certain period. So I see no reason to believe this will ever deserve its own article (WP:NOTE, not to mention all the other problems). If OTOH it starts to be edited based upon WP:OR and WP:V then it will simply be an un-needed fork. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:10, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The objection to using pre-1900 references as being OR seems confused -- those are original sources, which is not the meaning of OR. I would think that for history article those are the more direct original and close context for historical reasons, and that even by 1890 summaries of events there will be the problem of anachronistic viewpoints creeping in. ngram viewer was in ID talk countering claims that 'intelligent design' did not exist in 19th century as a topic, and gives access to the texts by year, and so is in See Also, not as a subsection of the article topic.  Any cite prior to 1989 Panda text is at least sure to not be part of the other ID article. Markbassett (talk) 16:18, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * " I would think that for history article those are the more direct original and close context for historical reason" No, we do not interpret historical sources to be related to a modern topic WP:PRIMARY. That is an example of original research (original synthesis). IRWolfie- (talk) 09:12, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
 * "related to a modern topic" Umm, remember this topic is not modern but explicitly the 19th century, and is explicitly barring any relationship as either (a) out of scope - not the topic; or (b) anachronistic - it's not like Darwin had any notion of today.  So yes, I see the 1860s letter by Darwin as direct evidence and the 1890s review by Academy of Science as speaking more directly and with better understanding to the time.  And neither could have gotten more recent material mixed in.  Markbassett (talk) 21:09, 11 September 2013 (UTC)


 * delete as original research and original synthesis of 19th century primary sources. Also note that this content is not suitable for merging, wikipedia is not a dictionary and content is not necessarily relevant to the topic at hand just because it uses the two words "Intelligent design" WP:NOTDICDEF. We only link content when the reliable sources provide that linkage, IRWolfie- (talk) 11:52, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete - textbook SYNTH. Guettarda (talk) 19:23, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete An article which starts out: "Historical uses of the phrase..." is going to be in trouble with WP:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. I do know that there are some cases where this rule is ignored, but I don't think the consensus is going to say this topic is important enough. With Google Books you could write an article on the historical uses of any two words put together. The question of mentioning the info in another article is another question.  Does the article on the Washington Redskins have info on the historical use of the word "redskin"? Kitfoxxe (talk) 23:09, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * To answer my own question: No, but it has a link to the article Redskin (slang) which is one of those exceptions to "not a dictionary." Kitfoxxe (talk) 23:16, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Don't think WP:DICT applies, since I'm just following what the wiki says to do "For other uses of the phrase, see Intelligent design (disambiguation)." and this material would not fit under primary scope which is basically 'as promulgated by Discovery Institute'. If you have a suggestion for improved phrasing, better wording would be appreciated.  Markbassett (talk) 20:54, 11 September 2013 (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.