Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reincarnation research (2nd nomination)


 * 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. Contact me if you need text for merging. No prejudice against redirecting. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:33, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Reincarnation research
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I believe that this topic is fraught as it seems to be couched in terms of parapsychology with a bias against the actual comparative religion studies of reincarnation which are the actual academic pursuit. This cul du sac of investigation ongoing by Jim B. Tucker can be elucidated well at his biography page or on the page of reincarnation directly. To have a separate article devoted to the credulous belief that reincarnation as a extant phenomenon is scientifically studied as this seems to violate WP:FRINGE guidelines that say that a topic must be notable via independent sources. The only people interested in "reincarnation research" as the article originally demarcates it are paranormal enthusiasts. Even so, most of the usable content is already found at other pages including reincarnation, Ian Stevenson, and Jim B. Tucker. jps (talk) 19:20, 24 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment. For the record, some time ago there was a proposal to merge this article to Ian Stevenson and Reincarnation, Talk:Reincarnation research ([//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Reincarnation_research&oldid=561280715]; Fringe theories/Noticeboard/Archive 33 is also related). The proposal was mistakenly closed as "no consensus". The closer has "almost admitted" that it should have been closed as "merge", but refused to undo the close, arguing that such precedent would discourage other closers (see Administrators' noticeboard/Archive240 or for more details). --Martynas Patasius (talk) 21:58, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Paranormal-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 22:02, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 22:02, 24 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Merge or redirect to Ian Stevenson. I am not sure if there is anything worth moving there left, as much of the material is repeated in both articles. Anyway, the main problem of the article is the lack of the well-defined object - unless it is "anything that Ian Stevenson has done, that is related to reincarnation". The current version ([//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reincarnation_research&oldid=570033461]) masks that problem a little "better" than the version before the last proposal ([//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Reincarnation_research&oldid=507455122]), but it is still there. For example, the definition has no source. The editors who were trying to "save" this article have been told that it is necessary (Talk:Reincarnation research/Archive 4), but, apparently, have failed to find any suitable source (two sources near the definition are - perhaps misleadingly - not about the definition itself). Thus the article lists the "methods" - "Children's memories", "Corresponding birthmarks", "Psychological and cultural characteristics", "Independent replication", "Independent replication", "Reviews" and "Research protocols" (yes, some of them are not even "methods") - with no actual indication that they belong to the same field... Finally, the fact that this article is really about the work of one man can even be seen from this pair of statements from the section "Criticism": "Research on reincarnation has received a mixed response. His [sic] methodology was criticized for providing no conclusive evidence for the existence of past lives.". "He", of course, is Ian Stevenson (and that is what the source was talking about). As it can be seen from all the evidence, this material belongs in the article about him (with the obvious exception of material that does not belong in Wikipedia at all). --Martynas Patasius (talk) 22:41, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep It seems like it contains magical mumbojumbo, such as looking for birthmarks on a child which match physical injuries of their antecedents. But per the article it has been a topic of research for several researchers with respectable academic posts. It should not be merged to the one researcher, since other have worked on it. It would be akin to merging operant conditioning to B.F Skinner. See also Bridey Murphy, from the early 1950's. Study of reincarnation, however flawed scientifically, predates the research of the proposed merge target. Edison (talk) 00:23, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * So, how do you define "reincarnation research"..? For without any sourced (or even unsourced, but informative) definition we cannot conclude that anything belongs to that "field". That would be "original research".
 * Oh, and even if it could be demonstrated that someone else worked in the "field", by itself it still wouldn't mean that the merge is inappropriate. Something like "Work of X has been repeated by Y." would be suitable for article about "X". And the article as it currently exists does not really write much else about work of anyone who is not Ian Stevenson. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 01:57, 25 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Speedy Keep per WP:SK "the nominator ...fails to advance an argument for deletion" as they seem to be arguing that we should move this material to other pages such as Ian Stevenson and Jim Tucker. The topic is, in any case, covered by mainstream media such as the BBC. Warden (talk) 09:35, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Warden, you know that is an invalid invocation of speedy keep. is a source about Stevenson and what he did. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:13, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The SK invocation seems just fine but you can consider it a Keep too, if you like. As for the BBC source, that discusses the work of other people besides Stevenson such as "Dr Antonia Mills has been studying reincarnation among the Native American Gitxsan and Witsuwit'en communities".  The suggestion that this topic is associated only with one particular person and is not covered by mainstream sources is thus blatantly false. Warden (talk) 12:20, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, it has just five sentences about Mills. And please, there is no need for "strawman". No one says that Ian Stevenson is the only one who has done anything related (and the author of the proposal has offered the article Reincarnation as the merge target too). The problems are that: 1) it is not certain what would belong to this "field" (do you have a source with some definition?) and 2) the article as it exists at the moment is mostly about Ian Stevenson. Even BBC source you cited specifically as example of a source mentioning someone else is mostly about him. Thus article about him seems to be the most suitable target for redirection. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 14:20, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Here's some more about Mill's work, along with that of numerous other researchers and scholars: Review of Amerindian Rebirth. This field is obviously the study of reincarnation, just as political science is the study of politics.  What's the problem? Warden (talk) 14:46, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * "Political science" does have a definition with a source ([//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Political_science&oldid=568054678] - "Oxford Dictionary of Politics: political science"). This article does not. Thus your proposed definition is "original research". And I do not think it is even correct to say that "reincarnation research" is research, concerning reincarnation (as you seem to suggest). There is actual research concerning reincarnation. It is done by philosophers, theologians, anthropologists, scholars of comparative religion... It has nothing to do with the pseudoscience that is supposed to be the subject of this article. And, of course, that research should be described in the article Reincarnation, where the subject of this article probably shouldn't even get a sentence (per WP:UNDUE). Thus your proposed definition, while seemingly obvious, just won't do. And I cannot propose anything better than "whatever it is that has been done by Ian Stevenson and concerned reincarnation" myself... That is the problem. So, if you feel that there is something to write an article about, start looking for definition. Without definition, nothing else counts. You offer some review and I end up asking: is it the same kind of pseudoscience or a different one? I don't know - there is no definition to check. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 19:45, 25 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete I had a merge proposal some time ago: Talk:Reincarnation_research to merge this article. This article is mostly a summary of content which I already merged into the Ian Stevenson article. This article merely re-says what is in other articles and only serves as a POV fork. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:13, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete as POV fork per IRWolfie - David Gerard (talk) 12:04, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete per IRW. Dbrodbeck (talk) 14:06, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete as per IRWolfie above. While I acknowledge that, at least potentially, there might be a sufficient independent reliable sources for such an article as this, I haven't seen them yet, and the material in this article is, apparently, also already included in other articles, which do not apparently have the same problems of POV, OR, and scope that the current article does. But, like I said, if there are independent reliable sources sufficient to establish notability found later which offer a clear definition of scope which isn't really apparent yet, at that time it might not be unreasonable to re-create the article based on that evidence. John Carter (talk) 23:51, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete without prejudice to selective merges to Ian Stevenson and just Reincarnation. Research into XYZ is very rarely sufficiently notable to have a page separate to XYZ, and this one definitely doesn't seem to meet that threshold.-- K orr u ski Talk 13:22, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete Article is padded out to length by repeating material already contained at Ian Stevenson and Jim B. Tucker. Activities of the remaining two, Mills and Haraldsson, can easily be summarized at the main article section Reincarnation. - LuckyLouie (talk) 17:01, 27 August 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.