Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Neuroepistemology

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. Keep and protect stub during ongoing content/merge discussions j⚛e decker ^talk 18:52, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Neuroepistemology

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This looks like a verbatim copy of somebody's thesis. It's impermissible original research. It may also be a neologism. NawlinWiki (talk) 15:46, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy Keep The page has 148 references which utterly refute the idea that the topic is original. See WP:SK: "nominations which are so erroneous that they indicate that the nominator has not even read the article in question". Warden (talk) 16:01, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep the stub A neologism it is not; the term is used in the book Philosophy of the Brain: The Brain Problem, in the title of a book Neuroepistemology: What the Neurons Knowledge Tries to Tell Us, and in the title of an article Neuro-epistemology: a post-modernist analysis of the neuro-sciences.The topic has been researched by Patricia Churchland, a prominent scholar (past president of the American Philosophical Association) in the philosophy of mind, e.g., the secondary source An interview with Patricia Smith Churchland and the peer reviewed paper How do neurons know?. Given the books, the peer-reviewed article and the interview all from a 10 minute search, this topic looks notable to me. It is true that the article has much original synthesis of disparate references, but this is a matter of editing cleanup and AfD is not for article cleanup (see WP:NOTFORCLEANUP for details). The article thus should be kept. Update: Given Warden's stub with two solid references, I have clarified my vote to keeping the new stub. Mark viking (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:38, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment Author has now created the related article Neuronal Epistemology, which looks less like an original thesis. Any thoughts as to which of these to keep, or how to combine them? NawlinWiki (talk) 20:53, 10 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  - The Neuronal Epistemology article is superior, mostly because it is shorter and thus contains less original research. Both the original article and the new article have serious problems. Both have original research in the form of synthesizing many very different and wide ranging references, with no indication of secondary references that back up the synthesis. My "keep" was because the topic itself is notable. Mark viking (talk) 16:51, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISPEANUTBUTTER☆★ 01:02, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISPEANUTBUTTER☆★ 01:02, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep What this needs is some work and guidance for the author(s), not deletion. I find it hard that someone would consider that OR. Even if this is off someone's thesis, it's still obviously notable and it's a topic we did not cover until now. It just needs to not look like someone's thesis. §FreeRangeFrog^croak 02:02, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
DELETE Excuse me for shouting, but the comments above are uninformed. Those 148 references are a combination of things that are unrelated to the article and things that are self-published. The article on Neuronal Epistemology is just as much OR as this one, and so are some other articles the same author has created. The term neuroepistemology is legitimate and could perhaps serve as the topic of an article, but a proper article would have zero overlap with the article as it currently exists. All of the material in the existing article is OR. In my view we should not keep an article merely because the topic is legitimate -- there has to be at least a minimum of usable text. Looie496 (talk) 07:52, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I'm not much the shouting type, but I agree completely with Looie496. Yes, this is a notable subject. However, this article is so bad and flawed that I think it is irredeemable. It should be deleted so that somebody else can create an article about this subject. Revising the current text is, IMHO, not an option. --Randykitty (talk) 08:07, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment I just had a look at Pragmatic naturalism by the same editor and noted links to Barnes and Nobles and Amazon for the same book. This article has those links, too, but also adds another book seller. Sure enough, the Pragmatic naturalism article turns out to be a copyvio of that book. I'll have a look and see whether this article is a copyvio, too. --Randykitty (talk) 15:12, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  - PS:I'm pretty much convinced that this is a compilation of phrases found in the book linked above, but as most of the contents are hidden, I have no way of verifying this. --Randykitty (talk) 15:23, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
~~Delete~~ Keep -- or split and rename - It does not look too hopeful as is. Perhaps some of the content can be salvaged. I think a better article would be titled "Epistemology of mind". That is where we should be looking for google, and scholar hits, content and sources. Greg Bard (talk) 08:24, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hey man, I'm changing my vote.Greg Bard (talk) 08:45, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

- We need to be a little careful here, as there are similarly named but quite different topics in this field of philosophy. Epistemology of the brain concerns what is knowable about the brain, or nervous system in general. Neuroepistemology is about the effects and constraints of using a neural system on epistemology itself; just as philosophers consider language as constraining our ability to reason and to know, they consider brains to do the same. Epistemology of mind is yet a third topic, as many philosophers consider the mind and the brain as separate entities. Mark viking (talk) 17:10, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep: A Google Books search demonstrates that the topic itself is notable and discussed in WP:RS. One solution may be to turn the article into a WP:Stub, possibly supplemented by whatever bits from the present article that editorial consensus deems salvageable. That would provide a fresh basis on which future editors could build the article. --Mike Agricola (talk) 21:20, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep: I think that this article is salvageable, and isn't nearly as horrible as some seem to think. I agree with the sentiment that what it requires is cleanup, not deletion. However, if it is indeed a copyright violation, then I would say to delete it. Bensci54 (talk) 07:52, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete ~~or stubify~~, then start over from scratch. ~~I don't see a problem with Wikipedia having an article on this subject,~~ but the existing content is really so bad that the only option is to start over from scratch. I don't think any of the existing content can be salvaged. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:55, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- I think that Uncle G makes a compelling argument, directly below, and that makes me change my mind to "delete" only (not stubify). I'm no longer so sure that there wouldn't be a problem with having an article on the subject. It may well be that there's no good way to get anything encyclopedic out of this, but I think that the WP:BURDEN will be on whomever wants to start such a page from scratch. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:06, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  - OK to keep the stub, per below. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:35, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's correct that there is indeed a topic that is known as neuroepistemology. It has been redlinked on User:John Carter/Religion articles for some time, now. It's possibly a slightly unfair analogy, but this article on it is equivalent to having an article on the Solar system that states that it's all a giant Plutonium atom. What this article and its fellows are are a regurgitation of the theories of one Yuri Zambrano from Mexico. Colonel Warden waves the 148 references around and talks of reading the article. Reading the article shows that the stuff that is best sourced is stuff that isn't advancing the central tenets of the content. Whereas the thesis propounded by the article is sourced to Zambrano, who isn't published anywhere except via Lulu; via a publishing company in Baltimore that I have never heard of, cannot find any evidence of the existence of, and seems in any case to have only ever published one book; and a poster presentation at IBRO 2011. Published peer-reviewed scholarship that is acknowledged in the field, this is not. Uncle G (talk) 13:44, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The article doesn't seem to have a single clear thesis. It seems to be more of a survey of the field and so has a rambling character, as others have noted. The thesis of the nomination is that neuroepistemology is a neologism and the concept is original. That is not correct and so we should not delete on this ground. The article certainly needs work to prune and improve it but that's just ordinary editing. There's plenty in there which we can build upon, such as the work of the Churchlands. I have an ebook copy of Patricia Churchland's Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy now and thought I might have a go at rewriting the article. But when I realised that we already had a long article on neurophilosophy, I decided to wait and see how this discussion turned out. Warden (talk) 14:03, 15 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the main issue here is less whether this concept is notable than whether this text can be edited. Most sentences seem to be devoid of any meaning: "To carry in your pocket: Neuroepistemology is the timing when the episteme meets the neurons knowledge". Really? Do neurons have knowledge? "Timing"? "Neuroepistemology must be undertaken as a subject for scrutinizing neural performances and their mental events"? If I were to have a go at this, I would delete everything after "Neuroepistemology" and continue from there... --Randykitty (talk) 14:48, 15 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In the relevant part of Churchland's book, she characterises the issue as "how meat knows", which seems to be a pithier statement of a similar kind. It seems that the author of this current draft was not especially fluent in English so the prose is quite stilted. Per WP:IMPERFECT, we should make some allowance for this and consider the potential of the topic, not just its current state. Warden (talk) 15:11, 15 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm quite happy to consider the potential of the topic, and I'm very receptive to a page based in part on Churchland's thinking. But I've come to the conclusion that the only practical way to create such a page is to blank the existing one and start over from scratch. Thus, the only way that I can envision a "keep" would be by keeping a blank page, in which case it makes better sense to delete and start over from scratch. I certainly would not want to WP:SALT the page title. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:23, 15 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - the resident philosophy teacher next to me says "I don't know". I think he's trying to make a joke. It's certainly a known concept - whether it's notable is debatable. Bearian (talk) 22:36, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Bearian, you can be my Wiki-Zen Master any time! --Tryptofish (talk) 22:25, 15 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy Delete G1. Rambling ill-written article of little discernible sense. Xxanthippe (talk) 05:44, 15 January 2013 (UTC).[reply]
Comment There seems to be a growing consensus that the topic is notable, but there may be little or nothing worth keeping of the current article. In this case, perhaps WP:POTENTIAL applies. That essay recommends creating a stub over outright deletion--perhaps stubifying the article would be a compromise both the keepers and deleters could live with? Mark viking (talk) 22:47, 15 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps, if the stub were to be written de novo. I can't see my way to picking out a bit of the existing text for the stub. If you can create a text for the new stub, I might support that, but otherwise I think we'd be looking at "keeping" a blank page rather than a stub. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:00, 15 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have created such a stub. This is fairly trivial work which in no way requires deletion. Deletion is disruptive in such a case because it removes the edit history which may be helpful to future editors. It would also be contrary to our licensing policy which requires maintenance of an edit history as proper recognition of our contributors. Warden (talk) 18:43, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I now have no objection if we keep the stub. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:35, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The stub looks good to me--thanks Warden. I've changed my vote above to 'keep the stub'. Mark viking (talk) 20:45, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please note that there are now closely related discussions at Talk:Neuroepistemology#Merger proposal, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Protein episteme, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Deconstructive pragmatism. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:37, 16 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Colonel Warden's new stub per WP:HEY, with this discussion as consensus against any attempts to revert to the previous version (as has already happened several times). —David Eppstein (talk) 18:37, 17 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, JayJay^{What did I do?} 00:35, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Stubified Version and Protect - Keep the stubified version and protect it against non-registered editors for a reasonable time. PianoDan (talk) 01:04, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Just to be clear: my revised opinion is now to keep the stubified version. But, as noted, we are having a problem with one editor repeatedly reverting the stubification, and that is unacceptable. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:09, 18 January 2013 (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.