Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of counterintuitive truths


 * 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. ✗ plicit  03:18, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

List of counterintuitive truths

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The inclusion criterion is inherently subjective, which the lead itself says: "However, the subjective nature of intuition limits the objectivity of what to call counterintuitive because what is counterintuitive for one may be intuitive for another." It ends with "The following is a list of counterintuitive propositions that are actually true, despite being counterintuitive to the average, reasonable person." Average, reasonable person according to whom? Check the talk page and the history. I deleted a number of items in the list in March for a variety of reasons: no evidence to support the claim that a particular assertion is popularly believed; disagreement as to an assertion's counterintuitiveness; etc. WP:OR, and I don't find WP:NLIST satisfied. Largoplazo (talk) 02:46, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. Largoplazo (talk) 02:46, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Largoplazo (talk) 02:46, 13 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete, another problem with the article, in addition to the problems noted in the nomination, were that most of the items on the list were uncited and/or only linked to another WP article, which violates policy regarding using Wikipedia articles as sources for other Wikipedia articles. The owner of all ✌️ 03:00, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * This is poor practice and contrary to our style guidelines, but if the wikilinks provide RSes for the claims, it is not a problem of verifiability. I don't regard this as a problem that justifies deletion. &mdash; Charles Stewart (talk) 09:22, 14 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete. Per nom. Tessaracter (talk) 03:17, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. I got a good chuckle out of one of the removed examples: "Almost all continuous functions are Weierstrass functions." The "average, reasonable person" is not going to have a clue what's going on, much less what's counterintuitive. And no Monty Hall problem? Fie! Fie! Clarityfiend (talk) 04:10, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete Everything here is based on the personal opinion of creator, and nothing is based on a reliable source asserting that a proposition is counterintuitive to most people. And most of the examples were removed for being too obscure to possibly encounter most people's intuitions, or seeming as if the creator finds it hard to grasp many ideas. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. I could go on and on about everything wrong here, but the others have already summed it up. –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 04:47, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete, for reasons given above (and similarly on the article talk page). W. P. Uzer (talk) 07:13, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment: while the unclear inclusion criterion renders the current article an unacceptable WP:COATRACK that is an invitation to tendentious edits and OR, the concept of unintuitive truth is a respectable and notable one and it might not be difficult to change the article so that it is useful, informative and neutral. &mdash; Charles Stewart (talk) 09:19, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete Any list needs clear inclusion criteria; this lacks that. I think the WP:LEAD of this article summarizes the problem with the article fairly well: However, the subjective nature of intuition limits the objectivity of what to call counterintuitive because what is counterintuitive for one may be intuitive for another. This might occur in instances where intuition changes with knowledge. For instance, many aspects of quantum mechanics or general relativity may sound counterintuitive to a layman, while they may be intuitive to a particle physicist. Moreover, we already have List of common misconceptions and especially List of paradoxes which overlap in scope with this. That being said, things being counterintuitive is perfectly valid to note where they appear (with proper sourcing), but I don't think grouping them like this is meaningful. It would be better to have articles such as counterintuitive aspects of quantum mechanics and counterintuitive implications of special relativity than to have a single list for all counterintuitive things (if for no other reason than the "intuition varies depending on previous experiences and knowledge" problem), but even then I'm not convinced that separate articles are better than integrating it into the existing articles. TompaDompa (talk) 02:03, 16 May 2021 (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.