Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/MiHsC

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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. I have ignored the lengthy discussions about the validity (or lack thereof) of this theory, as this is absolutely not relevant to whether this theory is notable or not. From the rest of the discussion it appears that at this point in time, this theory has not garnered enough independent coverage to meet our notability guidelines. Randykitty (talk) 07:12, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

MiHsC (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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This theory has not received the

third-party independent notice we require for coverage. jps (talk) 14:12, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply
]

  • Keep. Main points:
  • One researcher is not many. It's one. Who is a mathematician. No one else in the field of dark matter or cosmology cares. Look at the 2013 Snowmass summary report, or in the journals Classical and Quantum Gravity, and Foundations of Physics. You will find no mention of MiHsC in the several years it's been since M.E. McCulloch proposed it. WaywardAMOp (talk) 05:32, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Would it be fair to say that those who have invested a great deal of time and effort in looking for "dark matter" would not be particularly incentivised to investigate a theory purporting to show it doesn't exist, at least not in anything like the quantities being hunted for? To me it makes perfect sense that the first professional scholars to investigate MiHsC would be from departments other than those most fervently dedicated to the search for 'dark energy' or 'dark matter' ... it also makes perfect sense that one or more of said departments will eventually realize that there is something actually worth refuting there, and assuming it's refutable, they will do that. But to my knowledge, for some reason, this still hasn't happened? Smells like institutional silo effects might well be an issue here? I mean, maybe a bunch of them have looked at it, but as yet they cannot easily refute it, and for whatever reason they don't feel comfortable telling their colleagues that they've even had a look at it, for fear of being told off for encouraging crackpots, or just for fear of looking dumb? -- Sethop (talk) 23:16, 29 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, it wouldn't be fair. If dark matter could be shown not to exist, literally every scientist I know who studies the subject would be thrilled. This is irrelevant to the question at hand, though, which is whether this particular topic is notable enough for its own article. jps (talk) 13:44, 30 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ok, well that's good to know. On the other hand, perhaps you could explain why none of those scientists have apparently never bothered to even *look* at MiHsC long enough to tell the rest of us *why* this theory doesn't, as the author claims, show us that dark matter could be shown not to exist? --Sethop (talk) 11:05, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's impossible to tell whether people have looked at it or not. The fact is that obscure theoretical proposals only get considered if they are evaluated to be worthy of consideration. Otherwise, it's considered a waste of time trying to evaluate them because of the sheer number of proposals. jps (talk) 15:12, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • It makes sense to ignore the ones that have not passed peer review. Ignoring the ones that have seems both arrogant and lazy, and speaks to an unhealthy institutional culture. It makes physics look bad, at a time when it's probably important that it looks good. But this is, as you keep saying, irrelevant to the question of whether this page falls within the wikipedia policy criteria for deletion. --Sethop (talk) 00:46, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's a user-generated article that is simply a breathless summary of a paper. More than possible that the article was submitted on the behest of the author. New Scientist, on the other hand, is a periodical that has been known in the past for allowing for pseudoscience and fringe science to be published on its pages. It got so bad about 10 years ago that there was actually a petition that went around asking them to shape up. They've improved somewhat, but these kinds of uncritical pieces continue to show up from time to time. jps (talk) 11:29, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • As for WP:NOR, the wikipedia article and the published papers about MiHsC reference other work in the field, including peer-reviewed third-party independent work.
  • The MiHsC theory is based on known established physics. It is based on (.
  • The main competitor of MiHsC theory, MOND (way older), has its own article on Wikipedia, although it uses ad hoc parameters to try to fit observations while MiHsC naturally fits observations without modifying any parameter (which doesn't prove MiHsC is real of course, but that the theory is simply more falsifiable than modified models of gravity).
WP:AFDFORMAT.[reply
]
  • Delete as it stands - Tokamac's points are either directly contradictory of Wikipedia policies and practice or hopeful of RSes coming up in future. The sourcing on the article as it stands is almost entirely primary sources and the rest are passing mentions - David Gerard (talk) 16:56, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please explain which Wikipedia policies are being violated here? Is there really no distinction between a 'primary source' that happens to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, and other forms of 'primary source'? --Sethop (talk) 23:52, 29 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Start with
    debunking ideas at Wikipedia when that's not what Wikipedia is set-up to be able to do. If you want this topic to be in Wikipedia, the best thing to do is encourage independent experts to review, critique, and comment on the idea external to Wikipedia to comply with our sourcing requirements. jps (talk) 13:43, 30 September 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • Ok, so the problem I have with
    WP:NOR
    doesn't apply *either*, as almost everything on that page references the peer reviewed literature. Now, if you and I can in good faith disagree on what the policies are actually saying in cases such as this, that would seem to be a problem. I think I am relying on a *literal* interpretation of said policies while you are perhaps drawing on what has been the common practice with similar cases in the past? In which case I really cannot see how a consensus for deletion can be reached without first updating the relevant wikipedia policies such that they better account for edge cases such as this one. Would you agree?
  • WP:PSTS leaves off. Note that just because something has received attention in the peer-reviewed journals in the past does not mean that it is not fringe now. There are two papers published in MNRAS and then after that, basically, the rest of the publications are in fringe journals which should be taken with a grain of salt. Since secondary sources which discuss the topic simply don't exist, it's pretty obvious that policy is that the theory is simply not notable. jps (talk) 15:15, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
There are so many obscure out-of-the-way journals that people publish in when they're shut out of the main ones. MNRAS, ApJ, A&A, and the associated journals are the ones that people who are writing about astrophysics and cosmology publish in. When they stop doing that, that's the indication they're being ignored. EPL has an editorial board for astronomy which is questionable at best. jps (talk) 11:11, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

References

  • Delete per David Gerard. Dbrodbeck (talk) 20:37, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete McCulloch gets much of the physics incorrect [citation needed], and makes a couple of basic mathematics mistakes [citation needed]. He has never provided a rigorous derivation of his Hubble-scale effect, and what he has written down contradicts physics as it's currently known (quantum electrodynamics, Einstein's relativity) [citation needed] without providing any reasons to believe they should be overturned. It has been published a couple of reputable peer-reviewed journals, however this does not necessarily mean they good ideas. He has also published in Progress in Physics, a fringe physics journal, known for publishing authors who can no long publish on arXiv. This seems also to be a promotional article for what's considered a fringe theory. The author is a professor of oceanography in Plymouth, UK (not physics), and a couple edits come from an IP: 81.156.121.132, which is in Plymouth, UK and cite no other authors. McCulloch has also self-published a book (http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Edge-Cosmological-Model-Inertia/dp/9814596256) on his idea, before it has any acceptance, and it is used as a citation in this article. WaywardAMOp (talk) 09:09, 19 September 2015 (UTC) WaywardAMOp (talkcontribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
  • 7 papers (2 in MNRAS, 5 in EPL) are not just "a couple of reputable peer-reviewed journals" as you try to pretend.
  • McCulloch's book was not "self-published" since he was invited to write it by World Scientific, which is of good reputation.
  • Very well, still not the most relevant point. If one with advanced physics training reads his papers (especially his Progress in Physics papers), it becomes clear McCulloch does not understand even BSc-level physics (which is surprising considering that is his degree). He is trying to gain support for his idea by strapping it to Wikipedia articles, when no one other professional physicists talk about it, like an advertisement. He also seems to have a quarrel with MOND, which is not currently the most popular idea about dark matter. This is another demonstration of how he does not understand physics or the current state of research. WaywardAMOp (talk) 09:09, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Tokamac (talk) 08:25, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the ]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein  11:32, 26 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment My Keep stands, at least for the moment. I am no wikipedia expert, but all of the points Tokamac made at the top of the page, most of which reference a wikipedia policy in at least some fashion, seem at least somewhat valid, and I await clear explanations as to why they are not. Furthermore, it seems like MiHsC is significantly less ad-hoc - and significantly more falsifiable - than at least one of the alternative theories that may or may not resolve the rather notable anomalies MiHsC is purported to have some degree of explanatory effectiveness in regards to.
These MiHsC based explanations of anomalies have been published in peer reviewed journals by a lecturer employed at Plymouth University, which has almost 3000 staff, all of whom would bear at least some reputational damage were said university to make a habit of employing cranks, as would any scholar published in any of the journals Mike has been published in, as would those scholars who have written books published by World Scientific, were they to become known for publishing the works of cranks. So to dismiss Mike as a crank without clearly explaining why seems absurd, lazy, and in some sense at least, unethical.
If he is clearly wrong then it really should not be hard to show where and how his theory is theoretically incoherent, empirically invalidated, entirely ad-hoc and/or unfalsifiable. If his mistakes are trivially obvious to any sufficiently qualified physicist, then both his university and his publishers should be asked why exactly they employed him and/or published his work, and if they cannot explain their decision and how they will adjust their hiring and/or peer review processes to avoid making the same mistakes again, then their own reputation should suffer accordingly.
On the other hand, if his papers contain no obvious mistakes, then given the quite considerable mystery around some of the anomalies being addressed, it seems as though refuting MiHsC should be a worthwhile and interesting task for someone qualified, if not a professional physicist then at least one of their grad students, who would probably enjoy the chance to refute such a paper and maybe get to publish a paper of their own in the process.
Either of those outcomes would seem better than a qualified scientist with multiple peer reviewed papers being completely ignored by the establishment ... possibly because he is not deeply embedded within one of the big physics departments and projects that are working full time on such matters? I wouldn't know. But it seems weird.
To be frank, it seems highly inappropriate for those of us who are unqualified and/or anonymous to be calling professional lecturers from respectable universities "cranks", or claiming that their peer reviewed papers are "wrong", without at the same time specifying where and how they are wrong ... because ignoring peer reviewed science and engaging in pseudonymous character assassination is pretty much exactly what cranks do. -- Sethop (talk) 11:03, 29 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's quite the
proposing extraordinary solutions to an extraordinary array of problems, strict scrutiny on the part of independent sources is what we need to establish its worthiness for inclusion in Wikipedia, especially at the level of an article. This particular topic fails in every way to do that. That is not an indictment of the science nor the researchers involved. It is simply a fact of the situation as it currently exists. If tomorrow amazing observational results come back confirming that this is the only possible explanation for the vast array of problems that exist, then I'm sure we'll be flooded with excellent third-party sources and the article can be recreated without prejudice. We should not have an article about this until other people notice. That's just the way Wikipedia works. jps (talk) 13:31, 30 September 2015 (UTC)[reply
]
  • Nah. Those are
    News of the Weird mentions of way out-there ideas. There is no critical evaluation of the ideas, it's just sensationalism. That is not what we use to establish article notability. jps (talk) 15:19, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
    ]
  • I concur. It seems as though the key points we are arguing over are the definitions of "high quality" and "multiple". Right now a literal interpretation of the rules would say keep, because there *have* been multiple independent high quality sources referencing the theory ... but you are saying that in this case those references are insufficient to justify notability. I think until the policy is further updated to better reflect what is 'sufficient' notability in such cases, consensus probably cannot be reached.
Right now, as I say, a literal interpretation of the rules would certainly seem to fall on the side of Keep. As to how
WP:FRINGE
theories work in practice, my experience is that 99.99% of said theories are not published in multiple respected peer-reviewed journals by actively employed lecturers from major universities, and thus allowing this particular page to remain undeleted is not exactly setting a precedent allowing the floodgates to open ... but if it somehow *does*, that would certainly validate my hunch that the relevant wikipedia policies need to be updated, which is not something I feel capable of taking on myself, but I would be an interested observer to the process.
Furthermore with reference to
WP:REDFLAG
.
The thing about
WP:REDFLAG
in order to bring policy in line with practice, and perhaps this case can be referenced from there as an example to inform editor intuitions around similar such decisions in the future.
FWIW, if you are wanting to get me to the point where I would concur that a consensus for Delete has been reached, then referencing rules like
WP:TLDR for you ... is probably not the best way to go about it. --Sethop (talk) 00:45, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
]
I don't know why you're making this personal. The fact is that the idea has not been evaluated by third-parties. That is where the crux of notability lies. Find a third-party source that evaluates it -- not some third-rate journalism or clickbait. jps (talk) 15:19, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
To reiterate, I have read the various policies you have linked in favour of Delete, and to my mind they mostly favour Keep. That you might think the opposite is intriguing, and what I am waiting for is for you to explain where and how my interpretations are wrong, or figure out which of your interpretations were wrong, either of which which might help to suggest how the rules can be made less ambiguous, rather than simply assuming I am wrong, and more or less ignoring the points I'm trying to make. If we have discovered an edge case that helps to illuminate one or more necessary improvements to the rules or guidelines, then that is a good thing, and once that has happened, consensus can no doubt be reached. Until then, perhaps this should be closed as ]
If you could point to one serious
independent source written by an expert not connected with the theory's author, you would do your argument a lot of favors. So far, you've done nothing of the sort. jps (talk) 11:19, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
]
Have you actually read the article? There are links to such at the bottom. You keep asserting that for some reason they don't count. I admit that it would be *nice* if there were a few more, but what is there would appear to meet Wikipedia's standards for inclusion as they are written. If those standards need to be written *better*, then as I say, now would be a good time to make that happen. --Sethop (talk) 13:43, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Non-notable fringe stuff. ]
The problem I have with labelling this 'fringe' is that it gives way too much credit to the *real* fringe. Those of us who would like to be able to tell *actual* crackpots to shut up until they can get a paper into a peer-reviewed journal are shorn of credibility when it is made to appear that this supposed "red line" is in fact meaningless, and suggesting that what actually matters is "being part of the club". The fact that it could be described as "outside of mainstream physics", or at least "on the edge", and yet still pass peer review, that actually makes it significantly *more* notable, in the "everyday" sense of that word, and there is arguably some cause for concern when the semantics of a word in a particular context begin to depart significantly from the everyday and common understanding of the word. Another cause for concern I have is the use of "Primary Source" to describe a theoretical paper. This is not usually done, and I think the wikipedia guidelines should be updated in order to avoid future confusion and unnecessary consternation. --Sethop (talk) 02:08, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Peer review is obviously not a bright line rule. Do you know how much crankiness appears in the peer-reviewed literature? Peer-review tends to involve an editor and a reviewer only. It isn't magic. It works very well as an initial winnower, but it isn't magic. jps (talk) 11:24, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I guess our definition of "cranky" differs. I have actually glanced at many of Mikes papers, and they seem a *lot* less cranky than a great many others I have seen. Such remarkable clarity! If only all physics was like that... in any case, since we clearly cannot reach agreement on that point or perhaps any other point, I am favouring
WP:NOCON over continuing a conversation that appears to be becoming something of a broken record. --Sethop (talk) 13:43, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
]

Comment It just occurred to me that maybe we could get around our lack of consensus regarding what the rules say on this case via

]

Although yeah, I obviously cannot coerce the *other* Keepers into consensus, but if you were to do as I suggest, to my satisfaction, then I would change *my* vote, and you might well find that by doing so you have managed to overcome the others' objections as well. --Sethop (talk) 18:57, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
And a (hopefully) final thought on this: In order to invoke
WP:IAR we'd probably have to agree that by doing so we've "made wikipedia a better encyclopedia" which is to my mind not a completely trivial question to answer, but I'm sure more experienced editors could inform our intuitions on that one, which would be a lot easier for them if everyone first did as I suggest and walked back all the erroneous or unjust points they'd made, meaning we had boiled our points of disagreement, uncertainty and/or confusion down to what actually matters, rather than forcing them to read this whole thing. --Sethop (talk) 19:47, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply
]
Comment Ok, so in my relatively brief skim of Mike's papers and blog posts on and off over the last few months, I, er, guess I missed that bit where he rejects GR :-) It sorta seems like that should be stated front and center of each and every paper, rather than implicitly introduced by reference to previous papers, or whatever. *Despite* this arguably questionable approach to slipping subversive thoughts into the peer review literature, it *still* looks to me like he's actually *not* a crackpot, but I am certainly no longer as indignant as I was with the folks who were claiming that he *was*, as if I had a more complete understanding of the relevant physics, and didn't really have a *lot* of time to think about it, I might well have done pretty much the same thing.
FWIW, I was relying on my very rough understanding of the physics, the fact that he seems like a nice guy who works for a respectable university and publishes in peer reviewed journals, and my opinion that "Dark Matter" really is way too arbitrary as an explanation for various anomalies, so radical alternatives deserve to be looked for. However, as I say, I missed that Mike was *also* throwing out GR, which is going beyond "radical" to yes, I admit it's not *totally* stupid to say "fringe", but given the people that lumps him in with, I'm just going to go with *impressively radical* for now :-)
Regardless, I would now concur with jps and friends that *even if Mike is right*, we absolutely do need a great many more secondary sources to say so before we give MiHsC wikipedia's imprimatur, and that yes, under the circumstances it would be really quite difficult to get some wording in there that actually managed to achieve NPOV. And NPOV is not really something we're allowed to fudge, even if we all agreed that it was worth doing, which I very much doubt is going to happen. Does that all sound about right? --Sethop (talk) 04:38, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, of all the arguments, Cirt's is probably the one that cuts through most for me; the only person talking about this theory at any length seems to be McCulloch, the originator of the theory. It might be crankery or it might not be (I don't understand the physics enough to make my own judgement), but our standard is based on notability, not correctness, and the attention that this theory seems to have received has been fleeting and shallow, as far as I can tell. Lankiveil (speak to me) 06:02, 4 October 2015 (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.