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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dysgenics (people)

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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.  Sandstein  21:03, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dysgenics (people)

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Dysgenics (people) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Obvious POV fork and recreation of text deleted through consensus.

  • Delete This article was created strictly as a POV-fork to avoid the deletion of the content at the original Dysgenics article, now Dysgenics (biology). It promotes a WP:FRINGE view held by a very few people as if it were mainstream science and is thus also misleading. Also, it reprises material deleted through RfC consensus here, obviously to try to escape talk page consensus. The user who created this page has also been warned numerous times for edit warring and tendentious editing.--Ramdrake (talk) 18:49, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: The article was created as a legitimate content fork of the Dysgenics article because there was controversy amongst the editors over whether the article should be about dysgenics in the biological sense or in the human population sense. The Dysgenics article has now been forked into the articles Dysgenics (biology) and Dysgenics (people). There was some discussion of moving the human population information to the Eugenics article but I started a new article because there is enough information in the Eugenics article as it is. You should take claims of POV-forking with a grain of salt. The legitimacy of the RfC on the Dysgenics article was compromised when the editor who started the RfC and his buddy kept changing the article to their preferred version after the RfC had begun; however, one idea that emerged was to have the article be about dysgenics in the biological sense, and that is why the article name was changed to "Dysgenics (biology)". Editing had begun on that article to remove the information that was not about dysgenics in the biological sense but further cleanup is needed. Here is a Google Scholar search on "dysgenics" for the past 10 years [1]. --Jagz (talk) 23:46, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment This doesn't change the fact that there was consensus that the content you restored was WP:FRINGE, and based upon a vanishingly small number of references all put forward by a couple of WP:FRINGE researchers. As such, there are also legitimate concerns of WP:NOTABILITY when basing an article on such a restricted number of references. Of course, this doesn't change the fact that it is an obvious POV-fork meant solely to circumvent the result of an RfC (linked to above) with which you disagree.--Ramdrake (talk) 23:30, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If this article gets deleted, then you still have the problem of what to do with the human population dysgenics information. There is really not room in the Eugenics article. --Jagz (talk) 04:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or redirect to Eugenics. Obvious POV-fork. There was no consensus for the creation of such an article on the dysgenics talk page. Alun (talk) 05:31, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just undo the split and let us get back to discussing the merge at talk:eugenics. Richard001 (talk) 07:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Ramdrake is incorrect in stating that the text was deleted through consensus, which was never reached. The text was deleted through edit warring, bullying, and other obstructive behavior by Wobble (Alun), Wsiegmund, Ramdrake, Slrubenstein, and a couple of less active meat puppets. These users seem to think that wikipedia is a democracy where majority rule decides. --Zero g (talk) 16:59, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Let me get this straight: Jagz and yourself, who have both been called several times SPAs are genuine editors, while the six or more editors who all disagree with you are all meatpuppets of each other, right? I thought so...--Ramdrake (talk) 18:18, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I think that what's being mostly objected to is that most proponents of dysgenics are independently known for their very controversial views on the classification of humanity (see Lynn's IQ and the Wealth of Nations and Rushton's Race, Evolution and Behavior), and that the predicted phenomenon is indeed not occuring (IQ measurements are rising instead of falling). This is why the whole concept is most of the time considered "fringe".--Ramdrake (talk) 11:20, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Our purpose here is not to shield people from controversial views; let's leave that to fascist governments. There can be a number of factors involved in short-term and long-term IQ changes. --Jagz (talk) 12:34, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The purpose of this encyclopaedia, of any encyclopaedia, is to present views according to their importance. To deliberately give more importance to a view than it has in the real world, or to present it as mainstream when it is being championed by a vanishingly small number of researchers, when it is widely contested and when evidence doesn't even support it (all true in the case of Dysgenics (people)) is misleading and thoroughly unencyclopaedic.--Ramdrake (talk) 12:39, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe that it is proper to try to use a discussion of the laboratory-induced dysgenics of fruit flies and mice (as you and your buddies are planning to do) to diminish a discussion of human population dysgenics. That's one reason it is better to discuss fruit flies and people in separate articles. Human dysgenics should be presented along with varying points of view on human dysgenics, not by supplanting it with a discussion of fruit flies in the laboratory. --Jagz (talk) 15:07, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What you are proposing comes across as wanting to present the interpretation of dysgenics which is specific to Lynn and a very few others as legitimate, mainstream science. Nothing is further from the truth: 1)dysgenics is by and far used in relation with lab experiments involving animals, not humans. 2)Lynn and others are WP:FRINGE and aren't even experts in genetics 3)The purported effect they claim to be describing isn't happening; in fact, the reverse is happening in the real world. 4)There aren't "varying points of view" on human dysgenics: there is a single theory, advanced by a fringe scientist and believed by less than a handful of acolytes. You come across as being intent on deliberately misrepresenting the facts. Please stop.--Ramdrake (talk) 15:42, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your POV should be presented in the Dysgenics (people) article provided you can cite it properly. The lab experiments on animals can be discussed in the Dysgenics (biology) article. --Jagz (talk) 16:04, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Our purpose here is not to push WP:FRINGE content, either. That is the major thrust of Dysgenics (people) and it is well documented at Talk:Dysgenics. The edit history is full of examples of advocates removing or burying criticisms of the Lynn et al. content. Walter Siegmund (talk) 02:14, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The purpose of Dysgenics (people) is to discuss the concept of dysgenics as it relates to human populations and not to bury it under the discussion of dysgenics as it relates to mice and fruit flies in the laboratory. --Jagz (talk) 05:52, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Either it is the same concept biologists use when studying all life, or it is a fringe racist concept. Guess what: the way real scientists study human evolution involves the same principles and methods as the way they study the evolution of mice and fruit flies. Your position is pathetic - would you have us have an article on "Natural Selection (people)," "Genetic Drift (people)," and so on? Dysgenics is the same thing whether we are talking about humans, chickens, or cockroaches - that is the whole point of evolutionary theory and modern biology, it is the science of living things. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A number of editors want the discussion of human population dysgenics moved out of the Dysgenics (biology) article. --Jagz (talk) 12:48, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Again the nature of the POV split is not addressed. The argument should not be whether or not dysgenics is true. but rather whether as a philosophical/cultural/political/social concept it is notable, verifiable, and the article presents reliable sources both as to the nature of the belief and it notability. By way of analogy: when Malthus wrote, the world's population was ~100 million, he proposed that it was impossible for the world to sustain that level of population. Today the world's population is >6.5 billion. I conclude Malthus was wrong. Two nights ago no less a worthy than Cpt. Kirk himself, William Shatner, seriously proposed on the Glenn Beck show on CNN that the problem with the world today is that there are too many people 'crapping in the ocean', and the population needs to be reduced. Obviously Malthusianism as a philosophical/cultural/political/social influence is still notable and influential, despite being personally offensive to me and (I believe) complete bunk. I similarly reject the validity of dysgenics as a description of current trends in human IQ, but I suspect that much opposition to this article stems from a fear of the very real and pervasive influence of this idea, not in biology or genetics, but in popular cultural and political dialogue. As inaccurate as Malthusianism and dysgenics are as descriptions of the empirically observable, they are notable, influential philosophical/cultural/political/social ideas and deserve to be retained as articles. If we don't know what ideas the terms refer to, how can we evaluate them critically?— 4.230.132.23 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. The preceding unsigned comment was added at 04:39, 22 May 2008 (UTC).[reply]
  • Comment: Actually, although it may not be obvious now, it is a content fork in that the Dysgenics (biology) article is being changed to discuss laboratory experiments with animals such as fruit flies and mice, while Dsygenics (people) will discuss the concept of dysgenics in human populations. --Jagz (talk) 23:05, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Again, for the record, the RfC consensus at Dysgenics was to get rid of the WP:FRINGE material. Your recreation of an earlier version of the article is just a pov-fork intended to circumvent the results of the RfC. And again, you are presenting the matter in a misleading way, pretending that WP:FRINGE concept are in fact mainstream.--Ramdrake (talk) 00:13, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. This word is used by biologists, but not in the way that this article suggests; as a concept within biology it does not deserve its own article but can be explained in the context of the article on natural selection - and as a word used by racists, it is fringe and this article reflects a POV fork. I haven't read a single plausible argument from any established editor who knows anything about biology or the history of science to justify this article. looking at its history, it seems to me that it is just another example of Jagz racist shenanigans, just another attempt to disrupt wikipedia. Let's not humor him. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:52, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That would expose the Eugenics article to increased edit warring by the egalitarian hardliners. --Jagz (talk) 14:39, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge back to Dysgenics, with appropriate elaboration that this usage is fringey. I think putting it in eugenics is going to cause a perennial drive to fork it back out again or to put it in dysgenics anyway, because people will come to the latter, expecting to find the material there if they already know a little (or too much) about it. Mangoe (talk) 15:53, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Keep Dysgenics (people) but expand the scope from a discussion of IQ to include other topics such as the following: [3]. --Jagz (talk) 16:04, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I agree with the comment above that dysgenics is a term used exclusively for humans (and species they have domesticated), so this split between dysgenics (biology) and dysgenics (people) is pretty foolish. In my opinion, we should go back to having a single article on dysgenics; that article was far from mature, but given time and good will a NPOV article could be written. --Anthon.Eff (talk) 17:06, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
However, there will be those that say human population dysgenics is fringe but in other animals dysgenics is legitimate. --Jagz (talk) 17:17, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

*Delete. I've changed my vote from keep to delete. It's not worth the hassle. --Jagz (talk) 18:34, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SNOW,anyone?--Ramdrake (talk) 22:23, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I count ten deletes, two keeps (one from an anon) and three merges. I happen to sympathize with Itsmejudith's merge proposal in theory but given the quality of this page i think most of it would get deleted anyway. Be that as it may, even if you add the keeps and merges together twice as many people vote for delete so ... let's just delete it. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:56, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
YOu can move my vote from "merge" to "delete". Mangoe (talk) 11:02, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment More effort should be given to establishing the importance of the influence of Dysgenics as a concept and theory in philosophical/cultural/political/social contexts, which are purely human fields, and which justify the existence of this page, as distinct from dysgenics as a theory in a biological/genetics context, the validity of which is utterly irrelevant to the notablity and encyclopedia worthiness of this page. Further if the consensus is that the biological/genetic basis for these philosophical/cultural/political/social beliefs is fringe science, then rather than debate them further, the correct action in my view would be to rephrase references to such research such that it is clear that they are cited as examples of what such fringe scientists believe. Wikipedia:FRINGE#Sourcing_and_attribution

    As a further note, a google search for Dysgenics Biology returned 7,780 hits and a search for Dysgenics People returned 13,500 hits. The subject as it relates to popular philosophical/cultural/political/social ideas is, I think, fairly well established as independent from a purely biological/genetics context. Quoting from Wikipedia:Fringe theories - Even demonstrably incorrect assertions and fringe theories like the Face on Mars can merit inclusion in an encyclopedia - as notable popular phenomena.— 4.230.132.130 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. The preceding unsigned comment was added at 12:04, 23 May 2008 (UTC).[reply]


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.
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