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. --Luigi30 (Taλk) 00:07, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Physical economics (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

Original research. No secondary sources are cited and the ideas discussed do not appear in standard secondary sources on Economics. A Google search for "Physical Economics" mostly turns up references to the single paper cited in the article and to the Wikipedia article itself. Jyotirmoyb 06:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• There are two papers cited in the article. Uncle G 18:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Google Scholar comes up with various uses of the term, a couple of which seem appropriate [1]. The article has been the subject of some edit warring in the past, per talk. Perhaps there is an older version that is less scarred from these edits? Smmurphy^(Talk) 23:07, 20 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Although the standard database on the subject , RePEc, lists 0 articles or working papers with the phrase in title or abstract, some of the GS hits are indeed real & I suggest the supporters of the article add them. The material in the article, as is obvious, is so undocumented and so close to OR that it is easy to see why it could have been taken as fringe social science--especially considering the reported but undocumented origin of the phrase. I removed the most obvious OR portion. DGG 01:08, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is, I'm not sure the GS hits are talking about the same thing. Physical economics in the article seems to be talking at times about emphasizing physical/material capital and de-emphasizing financial market capital, while some of these articles talk about the relationship between physics and economics models.

On the other hand, van Lierop, Wal and Braat, Leon. Multi-objective modelling of economic-ecological interactions and conflicts The Annals of Regional Science Volume 20, Number 3 / November, 1986 p 114-129 mentions that the term is also known as Materials balance models and is used with some success in environmental economics in the 1960s and 1970s. Searching googling and GS'ing for that comes up with quite a bit of stuff, much of it fairly mainstream (this article right now is about a recent left-wing derivative of the idea). I don't know what people who have been editing the article think of that scholarship, but it seems to me that the bulk of the article could easily focus there. That would bring up the question of a change in title("Materials based models in economics"?), which might actually lead to this article being recreated as a discussion of the more recent, radical assessment of the subject. Smmurphy^(Talk) 02:11, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, there is a relevant ArbCom ruling on one of the major proponents of the radical version of this theory, Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Lyndon_LaRouche. Again, I haven't been active in the article, and don't want to change it fundamentally, but the LaRouche issue makes me want to completely rewrite the article, depending on the outcome of this AFD and the comments of those active in the articles talk page. Smmurphy^(Talk) 02:21, 21 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Don't delete. Physical economics is real. LaRouche is nutty enough to ruin ideas by association, but he didn't invent physical economics. Why the desire to delete a decent article on a topic of intellectual interest when wikipedia has thousands of pages of trivia on every cartoon character ever? Openman 09:03, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached
 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mailer Diablo 08:04, 25 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete or rewrite completely The article as it currently stands is not what physical economics is. It is on applying scientific methods to economics, which is a different topic RogueNinja 15:52, 28 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be confusion between econophysics and physical economics, which is especially understandable because the article itself is confused. My understanding is that physical economics is a term sometimes used in the field of Industrial Ecology to differentiate between the real physical economy of matter and energy and the financial economy. It seems however that the LaRouche people have hijacked the words as googling for "physical economics" turns up mostly LaRouche garbage. Adding to the confusion, the LaRouche stuff looks like a pasted together amalgam of real concepts from Industrial Ecology, Econophysics, and other fields mixed in with their own absurdist ideas such as building railroads under oceans. Google "biophysical economics" the wikipedia Biophysical economics article is very sparse but imagine it minus the bio. Since physical economics seems too much a larouche concept, perhaps the best idea is to redirect the article to "industrial metabolism" or "industrial ecology" as they are what physical economics should refer to. The Materials based models and Material flow analysis concepts are tools used in industrial ecology, among other subjects.

[2] PDF of "Approaches for Quantifying the Metabolism of Physical Economies: A Comparative Survey Part 2" Uses the term "physical economy" with an industrial ecology meaning.

[3] industrial metabolism is perhaps a better term for physical economics

[4] larouche babble for comparison

[5] A PDF of "Energy quality and energy surplus in the extraction of fossil fuels in the U.S." That uses the physical economics concept.

[6] PDF of "On the History of Industrial Metabolism" Gives an interesting history of concepts related to physical economics.--Openman 09:48, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete unless it can be shown that this concept and its terminology is not perculiar to Lyndon LaRouche and his followers. Wikipedia is not a soapbox! --EMS | Talk 03:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per nom. Needs more references per WP:ATT to stay. I took a crack at reading the source cited in [Computer Modelling & New Technologies http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Computer+Modelling+%26+New+Technologies%22], note the mere 41 ghits for this journal. Given the low web presence of this journal and the extraordinary poor copy editing, I find it hard to believe that this is a mainstream scientific journal. - Aagtbdfoua 03:17, 2 April 2007 (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.