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. Stifle (talk) 08:51, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Myron Evans

[edit]
AfDs for this article:
Myron Evans (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Subject has requested deletion of his BLP. Apart from his claimed discoveries in fringe science, subject is otherwise unnotable. Mathsci (talk) 12:01, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I have not commented on Evans' mathematics: he has claimed that the Bianchi identities are not valid for an arbitrary connection on a principal bundle. This is nonsense: it is not just pseudoscience, but extremely bad science. Mathsci (talk) 21:09, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment For a real scientist, commiting errors is less bad than doing pseudoscience. I have no objection to "bad science". I object to pseudoscience without solid evidence. --Crusio (talk) 22:00, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that in RL world of scientific research these labels are very rarely applied. A lot of good scientists make unintentional errors or oversights which they later correct. Mathsci (talk) 23:09, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What is clear is you are violating WP:BLP here. This is not a forum to discuss your personal views on the subject. Please refrain from attacking him. (I suggest you remove your attacks as soon as possible) -- how do you turn this on 18:42, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
User:How do you turn this on, I am not sure your comments are helpful. You should be aware that one way of assessing a scientist's mathematical contributions is to look at mathscinet. Evans does not do very well there, as there are several published refutations of his work, confirmed by reviewers. This should not be mistaken for a personal attack: this is just an indication that he has repeatedly made errors in his mathematics. Please stop wikilawyering. Mathsci (talk) 21:17, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Calling someone a crank is a personal attack. -- how do you turn this on 22:05, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment User:How do you turn this on, only you have used the word "crank" on this page. The papers I mentioned and their corresponding reviews on mathscinet are now in the article: they point out serious errors in Evans' mathematics, which have been confirmed by neutral reviewers for Mathematical Reviews. Some of these articles were referred to in the editorial of 't Hooft. Mathsci (talk) 22:35, 11 October 2008 (UTC) (I have removed the mathematical criticisms: please see below) Mathsci (talk) 23:39, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"…only you have used…" – that is incorrect [1]. --Hans Adler (talk) 23:11, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Bad science usually is ignored by other scientists. Pseudoscience is almost always ignored. Here several people actually bother to write articles to refute his work. That's not bad, I think. Dosn't show notability, but gives the impression that his errors (published in peer-reviewed journals) were not of the "bad science" and "pseudoscience" varieties. --Crusio (talk) 22:20, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Serious errors in his mathematics were pointed out in published articles, confirmed in Mathematical Reviews. Is it up to wikipedians to make value judgements about that? 't Hooft pointed out in his editorial that refereeing for Foundations of Physics Letters had been lax, with a particular reference to the published papers of Evans. Mathsci (talk) 22:44, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Sorry, but 't Hooft doesn't say a word about the laxity (or not) of refereeing in FPL. But do we really need to go into all these detailed discussions about whether this is pseudoscience or not? There pretty much seems to be consesnsus here that this article should be deleted regardless. --Crusio (talk) 05:43, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(a) The mathematics has irretrievable problems (see the references here [2]). (b) 't Hooft wrote:

Between 2003 and 2005, the former Journal "Foundations of Physics Letters" (now subsumed into "Foundations of Physics") has published a series of papers by M.W. Evans. A partial list of these papers is given below. Together they would form a book that was intended to unleash a revolutionary paradigm switch in theoretical physics, rendering results in quantum field theory and general relativity, including the Standard Model, superstring theory and much of cosmology, obsolete. The magic word is ECE (Einstein-Cartan-Evans) theory, and the theory is claimed to have ignited frantic activities on the internet. In fact however, these activities have remained limited to personal web pages and are absent from the standard electronic archives, while no reference to ECE theory can be spotted in any of the peer reviewed scientific journals. This issue of Foundations of Physics now publishes 3 papers (G.W. Bruhn, F.W.Hehl, F.W. Hehl and Y.N.Obukhov) that critically analyse the ECE theory and its claims. M.W. Evans has declined the invitation to respond, referring to his web pages, http://atomicprecision.com. Taking into account the findings of Bruhn, Hehl and Obukhov, the discussion on ECE in the journal Foundations of Physics will be concluded herewith unless very good arguments are presented to resume the matter.

These editorial comments seem unambiguous: under the previous editor-in-chief of FPL, Alwyn van der Merwe, a long series of papers was accepted which presented a "new approach" to physics; however, the theory has been pointed out to have serious problems and therefore the journal will not publish any further papers on this topic. This shows a change in attitude to the previous editor, a friend of Evans, who accepted all Evans' papers: this could be summarised as laxness. In another editorial in the same journal, 't Hooft makes further comments:

During my first couple of months in this office, it became clear that fundamental questions in physics and philosophy also attract the interest of many laymen physicists. We receive numerous submissions from people who venture to attack the most basic premises of theories such as Special Relativity, but instead only succeed in displaying a lack of professional insight in how a physical theory is constructed. I suspect that some of these people may have been working somewhere in an attic, deprived from daylight for decades, determined only to reemerge with a Theory of Everything in their hands. Even though they may be very sincere, we have to disappoint such authors. New insights are gained only by intense interactions with professionals all over the globe, and by solidly familiarizing oneself with their findings, and we must make a selection from only those papers whose authors have a solid understanding of the topics they are discussing. Fortunately they also submit their work, and their clever inventiveness continues to surprise us. The foundations of our science are indeed very much worthwhile to be intensely studied. I am sure that progress of science strongly depends on the deep and daring insights that may be gained by taking a fresh look at the most basic facts that underly our present knowledge.

I can't see much room for confusion about what 't Hooft intended to say.
But yes, I agree absolutely with your last statement as I wrote below: the case for deletion does seem clear; and it is unnecessary to see what is crawling around under all these stones. Mathsci (talk) 07:12, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do we really have to discuss all this here? Evans' theory may be pseudoscience, bad science, or just wrong. It's not a personal attack to argue for one of these, but I don't see how it's relevant to this deletion discussion. OTOH calling Evans himself names ("crank") is a personal attack (although WP:NPA is not directly applicable because Evans is not taking part in the discussion). A combined reading of WP:NPA and WP:BLP should make it plain that Looie496 has violated the spirit of our policies. It would be clearly unacceptable in the article (even with reliable sources), and it would be clearly unacceptable here if Evans was an established editor rather than someone who simply started editing because there was a Wikipedia article on hims with a severe BLP violation (a "pseudoscience" box with no appropriate sources for justification). Is it so hard to understand that BLP subjects are human beings, and that even if some of these human beings should need to be humiliated for some reason, it is never acceptable to do this on Wikipedia? --Hans Adler (talk) 23:05, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just realised that Mathsci had not seen the personal attack when writing his last contribution, so part of what I just wrote is moot. --Hans Adler (talk) 23:11, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes that's correct. Sorry about the confusion. However, I am in agreement with you. In fact I just removed the mathematical criticisms from the article, even though they are technically correct. As you say, since notability has not been established and the subject has requested the removal of the BLP, we really don't need to go down that avenue at the moment. Thanks for your input. Mathsci (talk) 23:33, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I apologize for using the word "crank". I assumed that as a signed entry on a discussion page this would be seen as my personal opinion. Please substitute "determined proponent of a fringe theory". Looie496 (talk) 01:22, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It looks like the discussion is tending towards deletion, and I'm fine with that. I just wanted to comment that if the article is deleted it should be because the subject is genuinely not notable or information about him is not verifiable, not because of concerns about the quality of his work. Even if it were to be established that his work were complete rubbish pseudoscience, this would not be a good argument for deletion. Wikipedia articles on pseudoscience provide a valuable service, by ideally being an unbiased (or at least neutral) description of the subject. We provide a resource that can help readers who have encountered a novel idea to determine whether it is accepted science, fringe science, or pseudoscience. We can't do that if we purge articles on pseudoscience topics from the 'pedia.

It's also not clear to me that the subject of an article on Wikipedia has standing to request its deletion. As long as the article is NPOV and properly cited, we should not cater to the wish of individuals to have unflattering information about themselves removed.--Srleffler (talk) 14:05, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Response: I agree completely. Some pseudoscience is well-known, widely-reported and needs to be included in WP (think homeopathy, astrology, and other such stuff). And subjects can ask modification of their bio if it contains mistakes (or worse, outright lies), but suppose Sarah Palin would request deletion of her WP bio, that would clearly not be in the interest of creating a good encyclopedia. In the present case, however, there is no evidence of notability under WP:ACADEMIC. Neither are there verifiable, independent sources arguing for notability under WP:BIO. So regardles of whether the work of this person falls under "sloppy, bad science", "pseudoscience", or "wrong science, but honest mistake", there is a clear-cut case for deletion here. --Crusio (talk) 15:47, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment There are two conflicting requirements: the need to alert WP readers to problems with fringe science (in this case ECE theory); and the more stringent rules for BLPs. In the past Evans tried to use his theory to justify the claims of the motionless electromagnetic generator crowd; more recently he tried the same thing with the Irish company Steorn. This sort of stuff is beyond the fringe. Perhaps one solution is to have articles describing several related fringe theories in physics, which are not biographical. Mathsci (talk) 16:31, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, not in the least. This is only the second edit of the anomymous IP, and should therefore be disqualified. Sreffler was one of the original contributors to the article, so was contacted by me as a matter of courtesy. He is familiar with the "zero point energy" crowd, as you could soon find out from his editing history; hence my comments. Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 21:15, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ironically, I think Crusio is right (and Mathsci has misinterpreted him). While the anon is arguing for deletion of the article, if what he/she says is true Evans would probably be notable and it would not be appropriate to delete. The anon has missed precisely the point I was trying to make above: bad science is not at all a justification for deleting an article. We want good, solid NPOV articles on bad science precisely to counter attempts to baffle people with propaganda elsewhere. The important issues here are whether Evans is actually notable, and whether information about him is verifiable. If there is independent media coverage of him taking legal action against detractors, propagandizing non-scientists, etc. then he is notable and these things should be covered in the article.
I am a bit uncomfortable that this AfD was initiated by Evans's request. Take a hypothetical example: Imagine someone intent on promoting a false image of himself and his work and using propaganda. Such a person might well be unhappy with Wikipedia's NPOV treatment, and might prefer to have WP say nothing rather than reveal things he might not want revealed. In such a case we would not be doing the public a service by complying with the person's request to delete his biography.--Srleffler (talk) 03:52, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I did not say he was notable as an academic; and notability is never established on wikipedia as the result of a posting by an anonymous SPA. The criteria are WP:V and WP:RS. The AfD was initiated by a complicated chain of events, which involved among other things Evans blanking the article (as Carrot18), possibly sending emails to WP, followed by administrative intervention on the article itself. Only the statements of 't Hooft were left in the article, as Daniel and Crusio had removed everything else. [3] [4][5][6] The primary purpose of BLPs is not as debunking pages for fringe theories by scientific nonentities. I took the trouble to locate academic sources which showed the science was hopelessly flawed: some time back I included the external link to 't Hooft's editorial (replacing a previous debunking page withdrawn by 't Hooft) and had quite recently included four articles, reviewed in MR, pointing out irretrievable errors in Evans' mathematics. [7] However, his academic career and his subsequent web presence fail notability in the sense of WP:PROF, as the majority of participants in this debate here have pointed out. Mathsci (talk) 06:58, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note. Even if this BLP is deleted, anybody is free to write a non-biographical article on Einstein-Cartan-Evans theory, already listed on List of pseudosciences and pseudoscientific concepts, using as sources Evans' published work (his books), its published application to the motionless electromagnetic generator and the published criticisms already mentioned here. Mathsci (talk) 08:43, 13 October 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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