Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tim Lewens


 * 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. Good work by Msrasnw in adding sources to meet the requirements of WP:PROF. Mandsford 01:37, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Tim Lewens

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

Obviously a bright and promising young academic, who will someday probably merit a biography here, but not just now yet. Does not meet any of the criteria of WP:PROF, specifically: #1, impact in the scholarly discipline: Web of Science lists 28 papers, cited a total of 58 times, h-index=4, highest cited paper = 31. He has written a book on Darwin, according tot he article "to wide acclaim". However, I have only been able to find one book review and the article lists an interview with the "Darwin Correspondence Project". While that website probably is a reliable source, I don't think this criterion is satisfied. #2, a highly prestigious academic award or honor: The only honor listed is a local teaching award. While this may be "prestigious" as the article claims, it is not an award on the national or international level, so this criterion is not met either. #3, an elected member of a highly selective and prestigious scholarly society or association: Being a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics does not seem to satisfy this criterion. #4, The person's academic work has made a significant impact in the area of higher education, affecting a substantial number of academic institutions: No evidence of this. #5, The person holds or has held a named chair appointment or "Distinguished Professor" appointment at a major institution: while the University of Cambridge certainly fits this, a position as senior lecturer does not meet this criterion. #6, The person has held a major highest-level elected or appointed academic post: "manager on the Department's 9 month MPhil course in History, Philosophy and Sociology of Science, Technology and Medicine" does not meet this criterion. #7, The person has made substantial impact outside academia: No evidence for this. Criteria 8 (editor in chief of major journal) and 9 (meeting [WP:CREATIVE]] or WP:MUSIC) are not fulfilled either. Hence: Delete. Crusio (talk) 11:50, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions.  -- Crusio (talk) 11:52, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions.  -- Crusio (talk) 11:52, 4 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep - This article more than satisfies any such criteria, Lewens has published extensively and been reviewed by many important authorities. Take a look as his biography.LarkinToad2010 (talk) 12:11, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
 * A note on my talk page indicates that I seem to have stuck out Mr. Toad's Keep vote, which I didn't think I did. It seems he didn't use the explicit "Keep" up top here when he made his case, so I took the liberty of inserting the word now, keeping the strikeouts of its improper use below. Carrite (talk) 20:03, 5 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Weak delete - Seems like a conflict of interest, but the article seems notable enough to have his own article. I'd say delete, but don't lock creation. Jeremjay  24  ''' 14:27, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep: The books' reviews (existence, location and content) seem to me sufficient evidence of his research as having made a significant impact in his scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources. A quick look at his two books listed in the article - finds they have both been subject to substantial reviews in sound journals. Have added some reviews to the article.
 * The Darwin book now has 3 reviews including one by Michael Ruse in Mind
 * The MIT book Organisms and Artifacts: Design in Nature and Elsewhere also has three: a 6 page review in The American Journal of Psychology, one 12 page review and a one page review in BioScience . (Msrasnw (talk) 15:33, 4 September 2010 (UTC))


 * Weak Keep - Academic rank and earliness of his career makes this something of an Ignore All Rules situation. Deletion will remove useful information without a corresponding benefit to the Wikipedia project. The existence of the published Darwin monograph will make Lewens a subject of interest for some WP users. Carrite (talk) 15:39, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
 * That's a keep then.LarkinToad2010 (talk) 22:48, 4 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete not notable.   His book was published when the topic was very popular, i'm sure it is good, but the notability of the book does not transfer.  Once he takes a named chair with a significant endownment, or does similar other notable achievement, he should be here.  Now, no... he doesn't.  --Buridan (talk) 15:58, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment on Buridan's contribution: My understanding is that our policy is that an author's work may be used to provide sufficient evidence of research as having made a significant impact in his scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources. And then this can be used to establish notablity. It does transfer! Named chairs or other things are additional possible criteria but not the only ones. Passing any one criteria is enough. Best wishes (Msrasnw (talk) 16:22, 4 September 2010 (UTC))


 * Comment/Question: In WP:Prof#Notes and examples (at the end of the bullets in section 1) it suggests that For scholars in humanities the existing citation indices and GoogleScholar often provide inadequate and incomplete information. In these cases one can also look at how widely the person's books are held in various academic libraries (this information is available in Worldcat) when evaluating whether Criterion 1 is satisfied.
 * Doing this for the two of books refered to in the article would seem to indicate that they are very widely held. I get for the US world cat entries:
 * US Library Count=724: Organisms and artifacts : design in nature and elsewhere Author: Tim Lewens Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, ©2004.
 * US Library Count=449: Darwin Author: Tim Lewens Publisher: London ; New York : Routledge, 2007.
 * Am I doing this right as these would seem very large numbers? (Msrasnw (talk) 16:15, 4 September 2010 (UTC))
 * Can someone else check the numbers for these - I have tried again on another machine from a different network and I now get figures of 643 and 400 for the two books! (Msrasnw (talk) 23:03, 4 September 2010 (UTC))
 * That's right, so keep! LarkinToad2010 (talk) 22:46, 4 September 2010 (UTC) <--This is not helping. Carrite (talk) 16:08, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Those are very large numbers for book placement, lending weight to the idea of keeping this... Carrite (talk) 22:48, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Another keep. (unsigned, posted by LarkinToad2010, presumably) Knock it off, please. Carrite (talk) 16:08, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

It's absolute rubbish to suggest a person has to be a 'chair' to warrant inclusion. If anything, a younger, up-and-coming author is more noteworthy as they are ones to watch. Plus Lewens has already co-supervised HPS students who are now academics in their own right e.g.  .LarkinToad2010 (talk) 22:54, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Academics are tricky, as things currently stand. At the one end of the spectrum are those who are automatically in — generally department chairs or the authors of multiple monographs on not-too-esoteric topics that have made some sort of public splash. At the other end of the spectrum are the generally personally-written short CV-type bios of younger faculty — which are almost always deleted once brought to AfD, it seems. Here you've got one in the grey zone — a young academic with a couple of pretty well-placed books, maybe making a big enough splash, maybe not. Honest people may differ on this one. I see it as a close call for keep based on widespread placement of his books in libraries. Others will want to see articles about the subject himself in the press or some evidence that his books have make a splash, either in the scholarly world or with the mass public at large. None of this is a slight on the subject or the article or the article's creator, it's just that the line must be drawn somewhere, which is why we're here... Carrite (talk) 16:17, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Possible pass of WP:Prof#7 The person has made substantial impact outside academia This might be via his Membership of an Expert Group what seems to be a group contributing to a UK government ministry's work (It is on the BIS.gov website) The report - The SCIENCE AND TRUST EXPERT GROUP REPORT & ACTION PLAN - Starting a National Conversation about Good Science has Tim Lewens listed as a Member and as having helped the Group articulate its views on trust - they use and refer to "The Universal Ethical Code for Scientists and the “Crisis of Trust in Science”" by Tim Lewens & Stephen John. This seems to me indicative that his work has made a substantial impact on UK government's policy discussions. The groups page - ] and reports and Lewens and John's used report (Msrasnw (talk) 19:45, 5 September 2010 (UTC))

Possible pass of WP:Prof#4 The person's academic work has made a significant impact in the area of higher education, affecting a substantial number of academic institutions. Which may be satisfied, for example, if the person has authored several books that are widely used as textbooks (or as a basis for a course) at multiple institutions of higher education. Lewens' books seem to be used as texts on many courses. A quick search finds : Do we need more of these to satisfy WP:Prof#4? (Msrasnw (talk) 21:21, 5 September 2010 (UTC))
 * University of Chicago: HIPS 29508 – Nature as Technology: A Philosophical and Historical Investigation
 * University of Minnesota: PHIL 4607 – Philosophy of the Biological Sciences
 * University of Colombia: PHILOSOPHY 3248: DARWIN

The answer to that is no, there is no doubt that the article must be kept and once a decision made, further multiple attempts to delete it blocked to prevent vandalism by the users concerned. Lewens is an important and growing authority in his field and more than satisfies any criteria cited above.LarkinToad2010 (talk) 22:53, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
 * we do not work that way. If the article is kept, it can not be relisted at WP:CSD or WP:PROD, but it can be renominated here after a reasonable time,--6 months is usual. Even if someone should relist it improperly, the action will simply be reversed, and considered an error, not vandalism. Strong assertions here do not help keep an article--we try to deal with articles on their merits, not on the degree of support from the original contributor. But it is indeed true that meeting one part of WP:PROF is sufficient.  DGG ( talk ) 01:48, 6 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep    He's written two books published by a very major publisher, with multiple reviews--more have been found since this discussion started & aren ow in the article.   The Univ. of Cambridge & Cambridge Univ Press is the world center for both research into Darwin;s works and publications about him,. The books are very widely held for academic monographs--which of course represents the interest in the subject as well as the stature of the author. Senior lecturer is not automatic notability, but certainly does not prevent it--many academics at this level have been kept at AfD, but not all of them.      DGG ( talk ) 01:48, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Kudos to Msrasnw for finding all those references. Even though most are behind barriers, it is clear these books have been reviewed multiple times in important journals. Also, the library holdings of these books are very high. I don't agree with the reasoning that Lewens meets WP:PROF #4 and #7, howeevr, I think now that it is clear that he meets #1, which is enough to pass WP:PROF. It would help if someone would clean the article a bit to remove some trivial stuff (like being manager on the Department's 9 month MPhil course and the teaching award: purely local and given to about a dozen people annually), which distract from Lewens accomplishments. Also, editors should refrain from inserting WP:PEACOCK phrases like "widely acclaimed", unless they can back this up with references. I would do these things myself, but the owned of the article already feels that I am vandalising all his contributions and I don't want to poor oil on the fire. Anyway, as some editors have !voted "delete", I cannot withdraw the nomination, but now change my own !vote to Keep. --Crusio (talk) 09:19, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep -- I think the article is good, well referenced, and (marginally) meets WP:PROF. I generally feel we need better coverage of academics who are making contributions to their fields, such as this one. Danski14(talk) 20:25, 8 September 2010 (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.