Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Our Fragile Intellect


 * 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   no consensus. No consensus to delete, and also no consensus to merge and redirect. A discussion about seeking consensus regarding merging and redirecting can take place on the talk page, and might benefit from being framed as a merge/not-merge only discussion rather than where 'delete' is also an option as is the case here. Daniel (talk) 07:46, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

Our Fragile Intellect

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Journal article that received a blip of coverage when it was released last year, and has not seen much in the way of longevity. Consensus appears to be, based on other articles on academic journal articles, that only ones with significant longevity tend to be kept in the project, and this does not appear to have that sort of significance. Thargor Orlando (talk) 22:55, 19 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 01:29, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 01:29, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Behavioral science-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 01:30, 20 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Strong keep. Notable author published notable paper in a notable journal covered by around 100 significant mainstream notable sources discussing a notable controversy about the "Idiocracy" hypothesis, a discussion that continues today. Articles needing expansion are not deletion candidates. The article meets and exceeds all requirements for notability and reliable sources. Viriditas (talk) 23:09, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep. Notability does not diminish even if, as suggested by the OP, the coverage has tapered off. The argument by Viriditas that coverage continues is not needed here. The topic satisfies WP:GNG because it was covered widely. Binksternet (talk) 23:33, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Either keep and expand to reflect commentary about the journal article in secondary sources, or merge into Evolution of human intelligence. It's clearly encyclopedic information that would fit well as a summary in that page. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:41, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
 * That's actually an article I hadn't considered when I sought out merge targets. A merger to there certainly makes sense as well. Thargor Orlando (talk) 00:24, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
 * No, not a good target for redirection. It is certainly true that this topic is a good fit for inclusion or mention within the Evolution of human intelligence, the important point is that this topic is already notable on its own. A secondary point is that Evolution of human intelligence is much larger and contains the theses of many. Binksternet (talk) 00:30, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm OK with keeping this page, and referring to it per WP:Summary style in the evolution page, but it's worth considering the merge possibility as well. I realize that there has been some commentary about the journal article in secondary sources, so I'm not arguing for deletion, but I also feel that it's unusual for Wikipedia to have a page about every paper published in Trends in Genetics or any other professional scientific journal. It comes down to just how extensive the commentary about the journal paper really has been at this time. It's true that the evolution page "contains the theses of many", and the question then becomes how notable this thesis is, in comparison with those others. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:38, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Page creator has convinced me (nominator on PROD) to keep. I will add sources to the article. As just explained to the page creator on my own user talk page, I had sources already at hand criticizing the article. Once we implement WP:NPOV here by adding sources to the article, and revising article text in accordance with the sources, all will be well. Thanks to all of you for your thoughtful discussion. I will first add the sources to the article talk page, and later to article text. (P.S. Merging in the manner indicated above would not have been a bad idea either.) -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 01:35, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep. Seems to have achieved a life of its own. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:05, 20 December 2013 (UTC).
 * Delete. This is a single article that has had a grand total of 8 citations. Yes, 8. As with many journal articles today, there was a brief news blip when it came out (driven by press releases), but then silence. There is no way this passes WP:N. I don't usually disagree with Xxanthippe, but the only life this has is that of the Dead Parrot sketch. -- 101.119.14.244 (talk) 05:50, 20 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Merge to Gerald Crabtree or delete. Our fragile intellect, Part I has very few citations (8 on GScholar, including one for Part II) and Part II has even fewer, but the article got a lot of media coverage. Therefore, I believe we should properly treat it per WP:EVENT. In this frame, I note that the article received the required "significant and in-depth coverage", with multiple major newspapers interviewing various scientists about the article; but it did not "receive coverage beyond a relatively short news cycle". All the secondary sources are from November 2012. Q VVERTYVS (hm?) 12:31, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Published works are not treated as "events" on Wikipedia. Per WP:GNG, the paper meets our requirements for a stand-alone work, as it has received significant coverage in reliable sources independent of itself, including ongoing coverage after the work was published.  In mid 2013,New Scientist called Crabtree the leading proponent of the theory while discussing the hypothesis and citing the paper, and Parviainen et al. 2013 recently cited the hypothesis (and the paper) in their research on the design of interactive technology.  More examples can be found. Strangely, Qwertyus, your most recent to the article seemed to introduce bias by claiming that Steve Jones was an expert on the current genetics literature when in fact he is an Emeritus Professor who hasn't had any papers published in the scientific literature on genetics in many, many years (decades) and probably isn't the least bit familiar with current research. Viriditas (talk) 03:49, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The last two comments have made me feel more inclined to merge, and less so to keep. I'd like to see if editors who want to keep know of sources to refute those comments. But, looking at the Scholar hits, most of them are either comments to the editor or responses to those comments, or very minor secondary comments, clearly inconsistent with ongoing scholarly interest. I looked then for Google News hits, going back in time, and I was surprised that I couldn't find any (am I missing something??). As for merging, it really ought to go both to the biographical page and to the evolution page. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:03, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I asked if I was missing something, and based on the most recent edits to the page, I was. Some of the discussion below is WP:OTHERSTUFF, and I don't find it very convincing, but what I do find convincing is the addition of new sources to the page itself, where there does seem to have been enough independent commentary about the paper to satisfy GNG. There still doesn't seem to be a lot of such independent commentary, once one separates out the commentary about Idiocracy generally, so I'd call it a close pass of GNG, not an overwhelming one. So I'm back to where I was at the start, about equally receptive to either merge or keep. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:34, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Merge is now my considered view of what to do After examining the article, which has received a flurry of recent edits, there just isn't any there there. Yes, it's an event, not a major publication in the scientific literature, and the event is past and soon to be forgotten. The suggestions of where to merge made above make sense to me. -- WeijiBaikeBianji (talk, how I edit) 02:15, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The article on Our Fragile Intellect is no different than our article on the publication Is Google Making Us Stupid? Such publications are not classified as "events" anywhere on Wikipedia, they are classified as notable works. It's also fallacious on multiple levels to argue that it must be a 1) major publication, that the 2) publication occurred in the past, and 3) predicting it will soon be forgotten when at least two recent publications in the last six months (New Scientist and Challenges) have demonstrably not forgotten it but have highlighted its importance.  None of these things have anything to do with how we create, maintain, or write encyclopedia articles. Additionally, the "Idiocracy hypothesis" has been written about by many authors.  Your blind assertion that this hypothesis will be "soon forgotten" is so incredibly historically ignorant, one is forced to ironically consider that the Idiocracy is indeed upon us (Hail Brawndo).  Evidence indicates that this proto-hypothesis has been under discussion since the earliest days of Hindu cosmology first developed the concept of yugas thousands of years ago followed notably by Hesiod (750-650 BCE) reigniting the discussion.  Much later, with the rise of the industrial revolution, it was reinvented by fiction writers who drew upon the new technology for inspiration, beginning with "The Machine Stops" (1909) and later, "The Marching Morons" (1951).  After that, the list is quite large.  Not only isn't this idea going to be soon forgotten, but the notion that our intellect is declining is woven into the very fabric of human culture as a patterned monomyth.  The latest version of this hypothesis has been recently published in the journal Intelligence by Woodley et al., 2013, under the title, "Were the Victorians cleverer than us? The decline in general intelligence estimated from a meta-analysis of the slowing of simple reaction time." Far from going away, this is an enduring topic that has been with us since the beginning of recorded history. Viriditas (talk) 04:29, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The difference is that "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" has 401 GS citations; it's a notable article. This one has just 8 GS citations. It is not a notable journal article. Per WP:NOTINHERITED, any notability of Idiocracy, Hesiod, The Marching Morons, etc. is irrelevant to the question here: is the journal article which is the subject of this Wikipedia article notable? Because this Wikipedia article is about the journal article, not about the concept. And the only news coverage of this journal article was a brief spike, generated by press releases, in November 2012. The journal article has been ignored since then. It is not a notable journal article. -- 101.119.14.36 (talk) 11:06, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Not true. There are currently 16 sources in the article, not 8, and that clearly meets the WP:GNG.  There are also additional sources (Parviainen et al., 2013).  There isn't a single argument about inheriting notability anywhere in this discussion.  The point that you apparently misunderstood was that WeijiBaikeBianji claimed that the article (and its concept) will "soon be forgotten" which I have shown is false. 4 of the 16 sources are dated from 2013 not 2012 (5 if you count the one I've added above).  Your claim that it has been ignored since it appeared in November 2012 is also wrong, as the sources show it has been covered in November and December of 2012, into the months of February, April, and May 2013.  Furthermore, writer Andrew Brown directly draws the connection between Crabtree's thesis and its long history in fiction and evolutionary biology, not me.  The notability isn't inherited from anything, it's part of a larger discourse per the sources, demonstrating its longevity and its place in history.  And, it's Sally Adee of New Scientist, not me, who asserts his authority as a leading proponent of the hypothesis.  So we see the notability, the significance, the longevity, and the authority asserted directly by reliable sources. Viriditas (talk) 12:08, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The number 8 refers to citations on Google Scholar (a very small number, and a sign that the academic community has taken no notice). However, if we're talking sources in the article, I count only 10, almost all from Nov 2012. The one from 2013 has only a passing mention of Crabtree's paper. And again, "his authority as a leading proponent of the hypothesis" is irrelevant per WP:NOTINHERITED. Crabtree may indeed be notable, but we already have an article on him. -- 101.119.14.134 (talk) 00:01, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment. The merge discussions above do not stop me from seeing that the topic meets WP:GNG because of wide coverage in the media. As such, it can have its own article. I am still in favor of keeping the article. Binksternet (talk) 00:35, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
 * As someone who is willing to either keep or merge, I'll point out that the arguments for merging rest on editors disagreeing about how "wide" that "wide coverage" you refer to really is. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:50, 22 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep sufficient sources pass WP:GNG. Notability isn't GS citation counts, sometimes notability is seen other ways. So long as there are multiple reliable sources with significant coverage. -- GreenC  07:23, 24 December 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.