Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Periannan Senapathy


 * 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   keep. New Scientist and Encyc. of Life Sciences coverage indicate notability Firsfron of Ronchester  20:51, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Periannan Senapathy

 * – ( View AfD View log )

Non-notable genetic scientist. Third party reliable sources are not in the article and don't appear to be available from the usual sources. Rocksanddirt (talk) 22:31, 20 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep Have you even checked his h-index? His papers are heavily cited. Because of this, it is very likely that he meets criteria #1 of WP:SCHOLAR. Regardless, his research and theories have been heavily discussed in various publications, such as in a number of publications from New Scientist. Not to mention in other places. Silver  seren C 22:57, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep per Silver, the sources xe found seem to satisfy Senapathy's notability as a scholar. I will also add that whether his theories are crazy or not isn't relevant to his notability. Qrsdogg (talk) 23:54, 20 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Delete: fails both WP:GNG & WP:PROF. No reliable third party sources cited in article, and the only one I could find elsewhere was a 25yo New Scientist article. The only argument presented to date, that of citations, is malformed as (i) mere citation is not "significant coverage" & (ii) Senapathy is merely the co-author of the exceptionally highly cited article listed in Silver seren's search. I would further point out that, unlike reliable sources substantiating that "the person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed", which is what WP:PROF(1) explicitly demands, and which is wholly lacking, WP:OR conjectures based upon mere citations do not provide any usable content for inclusion in the article. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 06:53, 21 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep Here is a list of notable publications from Senapathy.
 * 1) The most important of them published on Science (along with Nature, considered as the top journal in the field of biology) as the first and only author,

P.Senapathy. Introns and the Origin of Protein-Coding Genes, Science, 268 (5215), 1366-1369 (1995) The article can be found here http://www.sciencemag.org/content/268/5215/1366.extract?sid=5c7b8ab4-10b4-454c-bd87-a4f9ab19548f
 * 2) Senapathy P, Tratschin JD, Carter BJ.

Replication of adeno-associated virus DNA. Complementation of naturally occurring rep- mutants by a wild-type genome or an ori- mutant and correction of terminal palindrome deletions. J Mol Biol. 1984 Oct 15;179(1):1-20
 * 3) Shapiro MB, Senapathy P.

Automated preparation of DNA sequences for publication. Nucleic Acids Res. 1986 Jan 10;14(1):65-73
 * 4) Senapathy P.

Origin of eukaryotic introns: a hypothesis, based on codon distribution statistics in genes, and its implications. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1986 Apr;83(7):2133-7
 * 5) Shapiro MB, Senapathy P.

RNA splice junctions of different classes of eukaryotes: sequence statistics and functional implications in gene expression. Nucleic Acids Res. 1987 Sep 11;15(17):7155-74
 * 6) Senapathy P.

Possible evolution of splice-junction signals in eukaryotic genes from stop codons. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1988 Feb;85(4):1129-33.
 * 7) Harris NL, Senapathy P.

Distribution and consensus of branch point signals in eukaryotic genes: a computerized statistical analysis. Nucleic Acids Res. 1990 May 25;18(10):3015-9
 * 8) Rahul Regulapati, Ashwini Bhasi, Periannan Senapathy et al.

Origination of the split structure of spliceosomal genes from random genetic sequences6. PLoS ONE (2008) 3(10):e3456
 * 9) Senapathy P, Bhasi A, Mattox J, Dhandapany PS, Sadayappan S..

Targeted Genome-wide Enrichment of Functional Regions. PLoS ONE (2010) Jun 16;5(6):E11138


 * 10) He had published a book also, Independent Birth of Organisms, Senapathy, P. Genome Press, Madison, WI , 1994

These are all publications in very noteworthy publications, such as Science, PNAS, Nucleic Acids Research etc, all concerning his theory on PDA. It is lame to rubbish all these publications away and say there is no third party reference. Rahul R (talk) 17:23, 21 April 2011 (IST)
 * why are these articles and the contribution to genetic work not included in the article? (also, isn't Genome Press Dr.S's in house publisher?)  I would really really like for a notable scientist with a notable fringe view to be included.  In this context fringe does not mean pseudoscience (like it does elsewhere).  At one time Darwin's view was a fringe theory, but one based on scientific observation.  If Dr.S's work is similar, PLEASE SHOW US HOW IT IS.  I freely admit to only a layman's knowledge of the subject, and to having not nearly enough time/access to materials to do the reasearch needed to make this article work.  --Rocksanddirt (talk) 15:32, 21 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment First off, the Science citation is only a letter ! Discounting this obvious non-peer-reviewed citation, an author search] on PubMed--far more reliable than Google Scholar--brings up only 17 peer-reviewed publications since 1981. It's also abundantly clear that the bulk of the PubMed citations have nothing to do with his Parallel Genome Assembly, at least not directly. In fact, "Parallel Genome Assembly" is not a term that can be found via PubMed search... &mdash; Scientizzle 13:45, 27 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Merge any worthwhile content into Parallel Genome Assembly and delete this article. Anything notable here is about the theory, not the man. Jd2718 (talk) 12:35, 21 April 2011 (UTC)


 *  Keep [duplicate !vote] If the theory is notable, then the person who proposed it is also notable, since the theory was proposed by a single scientist. In addition, Senapathy also has several credits to his name, including publishing articles in respected journals, well before he proposed this theory — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rahulr7 (talk • contribs) 14:51, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Except that you haven't demonstrated that "the theory is notable". A few "articles in respected journals" does not meet WP:PROF. And a self-published book adds zero to notability. Oh, and you just !voted twice -- so I'll strike the duplicate !vote. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 16:31, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * My reply was a response to Jd2718's comments. I have given a further detailed response on the notability of the theory in the discussion page on PGA. Rahul R (talk) 10:03, 22 April 2011 (IST)
 * Nope, your lengthy ramble is neither relevant to WP:GNG nor WP:PROF -- both of which require reliable third party sources. And replying should not include re!voting. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 18:51, 21 April 2011 (UTC)


 * keep - Silversiren makes a good guideline supported case. Off2riorob (talk) 21:04, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete Using Google scholar as a determinant of notability is laughable at best.  I just chose a random biochemist who does not have an article on Wikipedia, but whose work was instrumental in understanding insulin-like growth factors, one of the keys to aging and development.  He has ten times as many cites and at least 10X as many peer-reviewed publications.  I guess we should do a scholarly search of all scientists and if they have been cited 20 or more times 20 years ago, that's the standard of notability.  Now I can buy the argument that he is notable because he's not very well respected and his science isn't accepted very well, especially since only one of his articles has been cited a lot (and I will admit, it's been cited over 1000 times, which is quite impressive).  But it was published over 25 years ago!  I would also consider him notable if you want to add him to the list of "creation scientists" because his discredited beliefs.  Even his creationist conclusions haven't been published in peer-reviewed journals, because they wouldn't pass the peer review.  So, if we keep, it's going to get a thorough NPOV rewrite.  I'll try to keep from laughing too hard adding all of his creationist support.   Orange Marlin  Talk• Contributions 21:55, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Your example kinda falls flat. If this random biochemist was truly instrumental in something as important as insulin-like growth factors, then he should have an article on Wikipedia. Silver  seren C 22:47, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I fail to understand why the creationist angle is brought into picture. The theories Senapathy have developed have got nothing to do with creationism. It just deals with a theory that the most primitive genomes had random characteristics. I think anyone who has read his papers, can easily see that this is science and not creationism. I think the argument above is very misleading Rahulr7 (talk) 07:55, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Possibly because fans of Senapathy, like 86.10.119.131 (who has been heavily involved on this article), insist on promoting Senapathy's ideas as "anti-evolution". This is what happens when articles get written without third party sources -- the primary source material becomes a Rorschach test through which individual editors' ideological biases express themselves. That is why it is Wikipedia policy not to have articles on topics lacking third party sourcing. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 13:30, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  —Phil Bridger (talk) 17:55, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Weak keep. GS cites are 1636, 74, 68, 66.... h index = 12. Probable pass of WP:Prof. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:37, 25 April 2011 (UTC).


 * Comment: all this emphasis on citations (even assuming that this meets WP:Prof#C1, which I would question) avoids WP:PROF#General notes: "it is possible for an academic to be notable according to this standard [i.e. WP:Prof#C1-C9], and yet not be an appropriate topic for coverage in Wikipedia because of a lack of reliable, independent sources on the subject." Mere citations provide no usable material. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 06:49, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * That claim has long been held to be incorrect, see WP:Prof. However this case is marginal on citations. Xxanthippe (talk) 07:00, 26 April 2011 (UTC).
 * See WP:PROF which specifically refers to C1-C9 in making the above-quoted statement. MERE CITATIONS PROVIDE NO USABLE CONTENT! For example, one of the citations to Senapathy brought up on article talk turned out simply to be one of two citations for "In the exponential distribution λR is the probability that a given nucleotide triplet is a stop codon", another is one of four citations for "The subsequent loss of introns in pro-karyotes alone then occurred through selection for more streamlined genes and genomes". How do either of these citations provide useful information on Senapathy? HrafnTalkStalk(P) 07:32, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Senapathy's theories discuss at length about the exponential distribution of nucelotide triplets and stop codons within genomic sequences in the context of prokaryotes and eukaryotes. His theory also extensively deals with the intron-loss thoughtwork (a point of view based on the introns-early model). His publications are being used as primary references when someone talks about these points of view. Hence they are relevant. I have provided a more detailed analysis on the talk page of Periannan Senapathy Rahulr7 (talk) 12:26, 26 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep: Seems to me to pass wp:prof via having been an author of highly cited academic work -- either several extremely highly cited scholarly publications or a substantial number of scholarly publications with significant citation rates. (Msrasnw (talk) 19:20, 26 April 2011 (UTC))
 * I have tried a slight "toning-down" of the Parallel Genome Assembly (PGA) section. And added the unsourced line The theory has, as yet, no widespread support within the scientific community. I hope this is the sort of thing that might be acceptable to most editors. (Msrasnw (talk) 13:40, 28 April 2011 (UTC))


 * Comment. Yes, a technical weak pass on the basis above but the article is so tendentious and POV ridden that it needs a complete rewrite. Rahulr7 is not the person to do this. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:19, 27 April 2011 (UTC).


 * Question Putting aside WP:PROF-driven measures of citation indices, can anyone direct me to secondary coverage of this individual in reliable sources? I've failed to find anything of use beyond primary or self-published sources... The closest I came were an extremely in-depth critique by Gert Korthof and a brief skewering by Larry Moran, neither of which are likely to pass WP:RS. &mdash; Scientizzle 14:07, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I gave links at the top to New Scientist articles that discuss him. Silver  seren C 14:55, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Some other examples would be this, this, and this. Silver  seren C 15:00, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply. I did see the New Scientist links; they're short, but certainly meet WP:RS. The Google Books you provide immediately above are presently useless to me, as I cannot determine whether the mentions are non-trivial and have no present interest or ability to locate hardcopies, and the ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIFE SCIENCES publication is rather shallow coverage of Senapathy's work. What I was implicitly getting at in my question above was whether Senapathy himself has received any coverage, or whether all coverage is actually coverage of his scientific work which may be better-covered in one or more scientific articles. I'm only slightly leaning towards a keep right now because I personally find WP:PROF to often be a problematic side-step of WP:GNG... &mdash; Scientizzle 17:25, 27 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep The mainstream work clearly meets WP:PROF. scientists are notable  because of the work,  not the routine details of their biography. Coverage of their work or demonstration of its importance is fully sufficient.  WP:PROF was written specifically  to make that clear.    DGG ( talk ) 19:46, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
 * There is no secondary coverage of Dr S's work that has been found. There is only his self-published theories (which as soon as an RS journal publishes them they should be here, no doubt in my mind), his preliminary work that is cited somewhat by others (but not really reviewed), and a couple of mentions in 'whose who' type books.  --Rocksanddirt (talk) 15:39, 29 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Question: I see the citations (listed above, and at the article's talk page). How do we determine if "The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources." from those cites? Is being mentioned N number of times an indication of significant impact? For what value of N? Or does there need to be something else, as well? Jd2718 (talk) 00:53, 29 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment. Standard sometimes adopted on these pages is that something like 1000 cites is needed for notability but it depends on subject and other things. Xxanthippe (talk) 11:53, 29 April 2011 (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.