Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Organisms that are dangerous to humans


 * 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--Tone 14:53, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Organisms that are dangerous to humans

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This list is highly indiscriminate and vague. It is woefully incomplete and has little hope of ever reaching completion. It purports to list, among other things, all animals that have been known to injure humans in self-defense. Practically all animals, even docile ones, have some instinct of self-preservation that will make them lash out at an attacker. It is hard for me to conjure an example of an animal that either does not lash out at an aggressor, or that completely lacks the means wherewith to cause some injury to man. Any such pathetic creature would be evolutionarily disadvantaged to the point of preclusion from existence. Even promising examples like small frogs or caterpillars will usually contain at least a mild toxin or have the capacity to bite, at least in theory. However, even if that would not make this voluminous enough, then we come to the plants. Most plants are toxic. Even when this toxicity does not rise to the level of notoriety or lethality, plants are known for their secondary metabolites which generally have structures (alkaloidal, for example) wherein some degree of pharmacological effect is almost inevitable. Even plants that are commonly eaten will usually have some part other than the edible one that contains a toxin. Issues of vagueness arise from consideration of whether allergens, such as peanuts, fall within purview of this list. There are also plants such as cycads that inherit some measure of toxicity from a symbiote (e.g. a cyanobacterium), raising yet another issue of vagueness. The same issues for plants also apply to fungi. Then we come to the microbes. Some of the microbes already listed are almost exclusively infective to those with compromised immune systems (e.g. Bacillus subtilis), being otherwise innocuous. Given that in cases such as AIDS even one's own healthy gut flora can cause infection, we come to the now familiar situation where it would be hard to exclude any organism from the list. In abstract, there's nothing wrong with simply drawing the line, but it's too involved an issue to be handled in a disinterested way for a topic as broad as this one. deranged bulbasaur 17:31, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Delete Theresa Knott | The otter sank 18:35, 25 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete Theoretically, any organism bigger than a dime could be dangerous to a human, if it got lodged in their esophagus and caused them to choke. Highly indiscriminate list. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 20:42, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Changing vote to wait until this article can be rewritten, since the creator seems motivated to redevelop it. -- Nick Penguin ( contribs ) 22:26, 26 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete - if completed the list would include pretty much every organism. Guest9999 (talk) 20:49, 25 December 2007 (UTC)]]
 * Weak keep if converted to List of organisms which have been verified as having attacked humans which I feel would be the most encyclopedic and objective format for such a list (not necessarily at that exact page title, but with that concept). What do people make of this idea? It'd render the neutrality concerns moot.--h i s  s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 22:07, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete - even the rename suggested by HSR would have its inherent oddities. Given that, as pointed out, anything could kill a human, the list becomes pretty indiscriminate very quickly. Grutness...wha?  22:36, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete. There's a worthy, and possibly-workable, idea in there somewhere, but as it currently framed this list is too broadly defined.  --Lockley (talk) 06:30, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete, joke. Pavel Vozenilek (talk) 09:16, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Rename to "List of..." or Categorize contents. Flibirigit (talk) 18:16, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep There seems to be a fair bit of work that went into this, and it's an interesting topic. I disagree that the majority of oganisms are dangerous to humans (dangerous = can do permanent harm / are life threatening in a normal interaction), there's plenty of organisms for whom we're simply not a typical predator so they don't need defense, or which use other tactics for survival.
 * Just because rabits can't kick a tiger's ass it dosen't mean they're extinct, there's also running, living in a different habitat, multiplying like well.. rabbits :D, you get the ideea. Maybe it should list organisms by number of fatalities per year or something so that we can eliminate the theoretical cases that never really happen and get a relevant picture. If there's an article like that already it could be merged/checked with that.--Helixdq (talk) 18:38, 26 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I lol'd at this page. It is, for the reasons addressed above, clearly an indiscrimiate list. There might be something in shifting the page to a page of animals that are notoriously dangerous to humans, but how we would define that, I don't know. I believe the current form should be deleted, with the possibility of recreation with much more defined criteria. I (talk) 19:24, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep: I created the page a year or two ago because I thought it was a topic that interested people. Judging by the number of edits, I feel that was a fair assessment. Even though the definition of "dangerous to humans" is ambiguous, I don't think readers are at risk of being misled: anyone who is curious will link to the articles that interest them, on the various organisms. The key strength that Wikipedia has over Encylopaedia Britannica, other than its larger content, is its richness of linking and listing. The supposed consensus that Wikipedia is not a list is total pap: referencing and indexing and listing are all closely related, and they are how we humans organize knowledge. The real question is this: Does this article mislead or confuse readers or waste their time? No, the topic is relevant, and the article can be improved.Anthony717 (talk) 20:01, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Update: I'm encouraged to respond constructively by altering the article's name and contents to comply with my original intent: Name, "Deadly organisms", and first paragraph, "This is a list of organisms that are known to kill humans. Inclusion on this list requires a certain notoriety, such as that gained from news reports; and each included organism must have repeatedly killed humans in a certain way. For the sake of inclusiveness, "organisms" includes viruses, in addition to animals, plants and others." The list would be drastically pared down, and inclusion of any contested organism would need to be defended by two references.Anthony717 (talk) 20:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm starting to think full keep now. It's an encyclopedic topic that needs cleanup, sourcing, etcetera, but not deletion.--h i s  s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 22:19, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Also, animal attack redirects here. We should have an encyclopedic article on the concept of the animal attack as suffered by the likes of Timothy Treadwell and Steve Irwin.-h i s  s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 22:20, 26 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete article is non-notable per WP:N, highly ambiguous and not supportable given the high number of potentially dangerous organisms to humans. Mh29255 (talk) 23:45, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment I still stand by my nomination despite the rewrite. The new premise is better than the old one, but most of the original concerns still apply. I encourage everyone who's enthusiastic about the rewrite to take the time to actually read the nomination, since I spent considerable time developing my reasoning there. In fact, this list has the potential to be even more arbitrary in a sense, because basing it on number and severity of reported incidents will give undue weight to organisms with which humans have routine contact. Canis familiaris is bound to remain, even though fatal dog attack is unlikely from any given animal, simply because the dog is such a common creature. The peanut example from the nomination exemplifies the same problem. There are plenty of very toxic plants that are unlikely to produce fatalities simply because they are bitter tasting, but how many people have died from anaphylaxis due to peanut? deranged bulbasaur  00:18, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Here are a few more problems with the new version from the top of my head: horse riding accidents, rabies and syphilis. Does the horse belong on the list? There are plenty of fatalities to choose from, many of which are the result of the horse's direct action (say, bucking the rider off ), still it doesn't sit right with me that an animal should be on a list of deadly organisms just because people fall off of it and die. Rabies has the potential to make just about any mammal deadly. Fatalities due to rabies (a horrible disease) are fortunately a thing of the past as far as I know, but historical occurrences are easy to come by. Syphilis is an example of a disease organism that has completely succumbed to antibiotic therapy, and there's little danger of missing the symptoms so that it goes untreated. Is a once dangerous organism still game even if it is not dangerous anymore? Anybody have a story of someone gored by an Aurochs? deranged bulbasaur  01:09, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Continuing to defend: I have made quite a few changes. The definition of "deadly" can be made very precise, and that by consensus. We could give a general minimum of about 100 proven deaths per organism, with allowances for a few notables. We could rule out most rabies vectors, except bats generally ("the bat"), since they include many otherwise non-deadly mammals, like raccoons. The total number of organisms is unlikely to exceed 250. Considering all the shows on cable television about sharks and the like, a "one stop" list for readers to link to other articles seems really useful. As for "what Wikipedia is not", Bah. If its educational, improve it or leave it. Anthony717 (talk) 01:18, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Ooh, Ooh, I've got a perfect one. Mr. Hands. You can't rule that out on lack of notoriety, because it was all over the news and even resulted in a change in the law! deranged bulbasaur  01:25, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Viruses seem to be included in the lists even though there is some debate over whether they are living organisms. If they are to be included I believe there should be many more than the two currently in the list, from regularly watching House I think that the list might extend to thousands. How many of the "organisms" included in List of viruses have been fatal? Other questions, mosquitos are included but aren't they only a vector, should only the arasite be included? Should the snail that hosts the paraite before the mosquito picks it up be included? So basicly still delete even with the changes as it is a hard to define, unmaintainable list. Guest9999 (talk) 06:29, 27 December 2007 (UTC)]]
 * Comment the new name "deadly organisms" is much worse. For starters, all predators are deadly. Punkmorten (talk) 09:54, 27 December 2007 (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.