Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Medea Hypothesis


 * 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   merge to Peter Ward (paleontologist). Weighing the deletion and redirect comments against the keep comments, there is a rough consensus to not retain the article, a merge appears to be the option with the greatest implicit support.  MBisanz  talk 01:45, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Medea Hypothesis

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This is not a notable theory. In fact, there were so few ghits, except to the Amazon listing for Peter Ward's book. There is absolutely no support for this theory. I think mentioning this theory in Peter Ward is quite sufficient. Orange Marlin Talk• Contributions 00:57, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Keep The support or lack of for the theory is irrelevant (that would be to judge content). The press coverage makes it notable. That and 390239 google hits. --Michael C. Price talk 01:28, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Make that 599039 ghits -- notability seems to be increasing rapidly. --Michael C. Price talk 11:03, 23 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete unless better sources are found. In google books and google scholar the only two hits are both from Peter Ward's book. So, it appears to have had no coverage, repercusion, citing or reviewing from journals covered by google. Looking at the reviews from the book's princeton website, I can only see reviews from individuals, apart from the Boston Globe review. Merge to Peter Ward (paleontologist) and redirect LOL, it's going to be released on May 2009, three months from now, no wonder no one has reviewed it yet XD . Too soon to have its own article, merge it into Peter Ward (paleontologist), wait and re-create when/if it becomes notable  --Enric Naval (talk) 02:02, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * He's already a popular author, so I don't think we're really jumping the gun here -- especially considering the importance of the Gaia hypothesis (irrespective of whether we agree with it).--Michael C. Price talk 02:58, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * He has like 12 books and we only have articles on two of them (counting this one). I'd say that there is a good chance that this one won't make the cut. Let's merge for now, and I wish luck to Peter on his book becoming very notable. --Enric Naval (talk) 21:36, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Neutral Fails WP:BK, as the book has not been the subject of multiple, non-trivial published works whose sources are independent of the book itself. The boston.com article is the only article that currently satisfies this criteria. However, this one source contains sufficient critical commentary to allow the article to grow past a simple plot summary, and it's likely that more non-trivial sources will appear after publication. -Atmoz (talk) 16:55, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Redirect - To Peter Ward, with no prejudice to the article being expanded once this becomes more tangible. § FreeRangeFrog 19:06, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to Peter Ward (paleontologist). Verbal   chat  20:17, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep This theory is not unique to Ward hence it does not make sense to merge it into his article. For example, here is a lecture by Hawking presenting the same theory:  Canon (talk) 00:57, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Hawking's theory has nothing to do with the theory of Gaia killing all multi-cellular life via the evolution mechanism. It's about intelligent life killing itself once it reaches a certain level, the non-intelligent multi-cellular life survives, unlike the Medea hypothesis: "A third possibility is that there is a reasonable probability for life to form and to evolve to intelligent beings in the external transmission phase. But at that point the system becomes unstable and the intelligent life destroys itself." --Enric Naval (talk) 13:23, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The idea that evolution can lead to extinction has a long history going back at least to Haldane. It is a notable theory and has been investigated by several researches, cf. .  It was not invented by Ward and is notable. Canon (talk) 02:20, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That would be Evolutionary suicide, where certain species or populations will drive themselves to extintion via evolution, but not at a global scale, and only affecting one species. Probably a related mechanism, but it still has nothing to do with Gaia being a bad mother and killing all her multi-cellular children, and Peter is applying it to the Gaia superorganism and not to populations of one specie. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:23, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * One school of thought holds that intelligent life will kill all life on Earth via ecological disaster and another school holds that individual species can drive themselves to extinction by consuming all resources in their ecological niche. Put these together and you have this hypothesis.  Certainly a notable idea and deriving from mainstream scientific theories.  Of course it may be wrong, but that's not the issue as far as article deletion is concerned. Canon (talk) 07:49, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
 * We are discussing if that idea is notable, it's not enough that it derives from notable ideas, it has to be notable by itself. Just provide sources showing that that idea is notable, . --Enric Naval (talk) 21:31, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete Not notable. Also note that Hawking once predicted that the universe would eventually stop expanding and start collapsing when time would move backward, broken glasses woould repair themselves as the moment of their breaking was recrossed, etc.  He later retracted this backward-time theory.   &#0149;Jim 62 sch&#0149; dissera! 00:16, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * What have Hawking's failings as a physicist to do with the notability of extinction theories? --Michael C. Price talk 07:45, 21 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Merge and redirect to the article on Peter Ward unless and until it gets published and reviewed by reliable secondary sources. Right now it's vague advance hype with no reliable sources covering the topic. ... Kenosis (talk) 21:55, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The book is due out in April. --Michael C. Price talk 00:50, 24 February 2009 (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.