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 redirect to Adrian Bejan. Actually smerge. Smerge away I did the redirect Spartaz ^Humbug! 07:50, 9 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Constructal law

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This article has had issues of WP:FRINGE, WP:UNDUE, WP:OR and WP:COI from the outset. There are many references to primary sources, mostly from the person who coined the term. References by other authors either clearly attribute the "law" solely to Bejan (e.g. Quartz) or are WP:SYN, using the word "constructal" but not discussing or accepting the purported "law".

I think this article should go. There is no evidence here that the concept has any currency beyond Bejan and his close circle, and it is clearly not in line with mainstream scholarship. A smerge to Adrian Bejan would be acceptable. Guy ( Help!) 09:39, 1 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Merge into Adrian Bejan, on the way cutting out all the bold generalized statements (The constructal law is a law of physics—the law of design generation and evolution in nature.), sweeping assertions (much of sections 2,3 amd 4), and special pleading and advocating (the entire "Responses to criticisms" section). For a little-discussed minority view, this article certainly tries its hardest to make the interpretation sound "accepted', which it isn't. -- Elmidae ( talk · contribs) 10:24, 1 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. XOR'easter ( talk) 15:53, 1 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Smerge into Adrian Bejan, with heavy trimming. XOR'easter ( talk) 16:30, 1 December 2017 (UTC) reply
• Merge and remove the largely unencyclopedic sections. Natureium ( talk) 17:14, 1 December 2017 (UTC) reply
• Collective work. It seems rather harsh to propose a deletion of an article which the "talk" page does not show any strong debate or controversy, and that its current standing form has been almost unchanged for years. If it needs improvement, let's work on it. Furthermore, the topic "constructal" shows the following indices:
  • 792,000 hits in Google, 5,970 hits in Google Scholar;
  • 16,028 citations in Web of Science, 6,186 of which without self-citations, h-index of 55, in over 4,511 qualified publications (out of which 3,603 without self citations) that was produced by over a 100 different institutions worldwide;
  • And in the other scholar database Scopus, in addition to the nearly same indices, there are 91 patents related to "constructal";
  • There are publications by American Institute of Physics (AIP) including press releases as well as by Scientific Reports by Nature Publishing Group;
  • In the last 90 days this page alone was visited 4,388 times, averaging 48 times a day. It seems clearly there is demand for the topic;
  • Recently it was the basis of one more important award by the community, the 2018 Benjamin Franklin Medal by Franklin Institute; ^[1]
  • As a law, it has been independently argued as such by ^[2], ^[3] and ^[4] as well as by the Philosophy professor Prof. Jack Chun of Honk Kong in the 10th Constructal Law conference last May;
  • Wikipedia is the result of collective work, nor mine nor anyone's exclusive point-of-view. The very principle of Wikipedia is that everyone is welcome to contribute, learn, and find a compromise, a common sense. Those pointed issues have been addressed along the years, even though in many instances they were just inserted (back) without the due discussion in the Talk Page. It was almost simply plain bashing or vandalism by competing researchers or the ones uneasy with the 21-year-old idea, or perhaps lay on the topic;
  • The open user profile deals with any WP:COI issues, the WP:FRINGE and WP:OR can be removed after that volume of work that has been done and published around the world. Noteworthy that is progressively spreading every year;
  • It's definitely much larger than anyone's "close circle". If there is disagreement, let us find common sense based on arguments, preferably scholarly;
  • It seems wise, to say the least, to dismiss the AfD deletion right-away before it provokes any further damage and go back to civilised and informed discussions on the Talk page. Mre env ( talk) 18:32, 1 December 2017 (UTC) — Note to closing admin: Mre env ( talk • contribs) is the creator of the page that is the subject of this XfD. — Mre env ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. reply

• • • There is nothing uncivil or damaging about this AfD. This is the normal process. Natureium ( talk) 18:45, 1 December 2017 (UTC) reply
      • If I may, while everyone is entitled to opinion on how this is being conducted, the AfD procedure preconizes informed discussions based on arguments. Some undisputed indices, metrics and informations pro dismissal of AfD are presented above, whereas so far most claims favourable of AfD are vague or opinions. It follows that either one agrees with the claims or refutes the claims with new argumentation. The dismissal of AfD does not end the discussion, it just moves to another forum. Any further point-by-point discussion can take place in Talk:Constructal law in order to improve or build an acceptable article. Mre env ( talk) 22:01, 2 December 2017 (UTC) reply
• Strong keep as a separate article and tone it down. A theory only needs to be notable by Wikipedia standards, not necessarily accepted by the physics community. Bejan is a popular author as well as a highly published engineer holding a named chair at a major research institution. His constructal law is highly cited and has been picked up and used by many in the engineering field. The concept has been written about in popular science articles in reliable media independent of Bejan. He has been awarded a 2018 Franklin Medal citing "...and for constructal theory, which predicts natural design and its evolution in engineering, scientific, and social systems."

This is not a basic law of thermodynamics or a "first principle of physics" as Bejan would like us to believe. It is a consequence of the laws of thermodynamics. As I remember from stellar structure classes in the 1960s, "energy flowing through a system tends to organize a system". Bejan has come up with a way of saying this that appeals to engineers. He has added a large dose of philosophy, but that and the engineering concept should be kept separate. StarryGrandma ( talk) 23:50, 1 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• • Merge and leave redirect. The concept is out there everywhere but I cannot find useful secondary sources with independent analysis. StarryGrandma ( talk) 15:36, 2 December 2017 (UTC) reply
  • As being deduced from any other law of thermodynamics, there is an argument it is not. Reis has showed that MEP (maximum entropy production), like its complete opposite (minimum entropy production) is a special ad-hoc optimality principle that is covered by the constructal law. ^[1] Mre env ( talk) 22:03, 2 December 2017 (UTC) reply
    • Indeed "the concept is out there everywhere". What does Wikipedia establish as requirements for a source to be considered "useful, secondary with independent analysis"? Doesn't it require clarification and more searching then ? Searching can be laborious since there are 792,000 hits in Google, 5,970 hits in Google Scholar, but a thorough search is fair and necessary. In addition to those independent sources cited above and many in the article itself, the American Institute of Physics press team made releases about some of the publications. ^{[2] [3] [4]} There are also free press pieces such as in Forbes, ^{[5] [6]} STEAM-Register, ^[7] National Geographic, ^[8] other sites like the Washington State University ^[9] and AstroBiology Magazine. ^[10]
    • 'Due weight' for Constructal Theory is even acknowledged by the well-known Prof. Geoffrey West "Yes, I’m familiar with his (Bejan) work. Adrian and I sort of agree conceptually. If we disagree — I’m not even sure there’s a fundamental disagreement — (...) But I suspect that conceptually he and I are quite close. I haven’t talked to him for a long time." ^[11] Prof. West has his own (competing) theory for cities and definitely not friendly to Constructal Theory. Mre env ( talk) 22:04, 2 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Mre env, this is a scientific concept. You don't need to search through everything on Google. Look for review articles in the scientific literature, not just summaries, at Google Scholar. Interviews or summaries in magazines, newspapers, and blogs are not enough. Maybe the Franklin Medal award will spur an analysis of this in the scientific literature. StarryGrandma ( talk) 23:06, 2 December 2017 (UTC) reply

user:Mre env has no history on Wikipedia other than pushing this theory. I suspect that if any independent sources existed they'd have been added by now, as virtually every word Bejan ever wrote has been. Guy ( Help!) 11:04, 4 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Indeed StarryGrandma, Constructal Theory is a "scientific concept" and it should be addressed scholarly. Its scientific relevance, regardless of any controversy, is set clearly by the volume of independent and peer-reviewed work registered in Web of Science and Scopus (see indices above). Science welcomes controversy, but that too must be built on method and in a proper forum. In fact controversy is one of the pillars of the scientific method. Wikipedia is open. Those who can bring scholarly qualified information either pro or con are free to do so. Disagreements in the editions must be addressed in Talk:Constructal law not here. If all that is not enough to dismiss the AfD, there's more. It's good that you acknowledge the importance of Benjamin Franklin Medal, because that is one example of the very secondary, independent and credible source you seek. It is awarded by a committee ^[1] formed by independent scholars who in turn follow criteria such as "The work must have substantial scientific value and/or proven utility. It must have provided significant direction for future research, solved an important technological problem, or provided great benefit to the public." It seems reasonable to assume it meets Wikipedia established criteria or those first pointed-out by yourself. On a personal note if I may, the way you express interest in the role of Constructal theory in Wikipedia has been productive and civil because you brought arguments with little of guesses, speculations and no personal insults. Worth stressing this article has undergone attacks, bashing and vandalism on many occasions. It was created in 2005 and I started to contribute on it in mid-2013. With the help of other editors we reached that current stand that stayed almost unchanged for years despite occasional tagging without the proper discussion. Hope that suffices, otherwise there is homework to be done. Mre env ( talk) 15:39, 4 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Mre env, when you use references on a talk page add Template:Reflist-talk at the end of your comment to keep the references with the comment. StarryGrandma ( talk) 17:29, 4 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Merge to Adrian Bejan seems like a reasonable option here. Unless someone can point to some other notable use of this idea, I think it is best that we don't have two articles and the biography seems like the natural option. jps ( talk) 15:56, 4 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Have you considered and checked the Collective work arguments above ? Isn't that enough ? Controversies are then addressed in the Talk page. Mre env ( talk) 19:41, 4 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Merge - I'm faculty in comparative biomechanics, and the view from the ground in the field is entirely consistent with the label of "fringe" - literally nobody references this work, and anyone with familiarity with it dismisses it as a mix of trivialities, obvious errors, shifting goalposts, and general lack of knowledge about biological systems; it is Not_even_wrong. The only reason nobody has published a rebuttal/critique is that it's considered not worth anyone's time. It's produced no predictions of any meaningful accuracy or precision, and I have yet to see any genuine experimental test, nor have I ever seen a paper relying upon it which isn't written either by Bejan or one of his students. HCA ( talk) 17:27, 4 December 2017 (UTC) reply
• Merge - I was invited to participate by Mre env because I have edited the page in question. This page has a history of POV edits that evidently has not improved in the years since I first encountered it. The topic is WP:NOTable only in the context of Bejan and it is WP:UNDUE to have a standalone page for it. Jojalozzo ( talk) 22:03, 4 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Yield to merge - I grew to respect Jojalozzo for his/her balanced interventions. A redirect will deal with the 48 visits/day traffic. Thanks to all for considering my arguments. Mre env ( talk) 22:44, 4 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Merge - Fringe, OR, COI, POV, Undue, reffed to 38 works by a single author, not to mention dreadfully written and poorly linked. I concur that Bejan himself is probably notable (else we should delete both pages) so a merge, meaning a vigorous pruning down to a paragraph or two, is the best option. Chiswick Chap ( talk) 08:20, 5 December 2017 (UTC) reply
• Keep - The Constructal Law page must be maintained and augmented, not deleted. The constructal law is accepted and used as principle throughout physics, especially applied physics. This is widely documented by a growing and diverse list of authors in journals covering physics, biology and social dynamics. Must keep this page, it has a strong following. PheonixRo ( talk) 07:20, 6 December 2017 (UTC) — PheonixRo ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. reply

Can you cite a single biology paper for which it yields correct results that correspond to empirical measurements? And not "within an order of magnitude" - that's just physics for "wrong but we don't want to admit it". Or any papers which explain how constructal theory's required perpetual improvement can be reconciled with taxa which undergo long periods of morphological stasis (e.g. Horseshoe crabs), or even reversion to "flow-optimized" states (e.g. stonefish)? HCA ( talk) 15:25, 6 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• I am working in this area more than ten years. I got great proved results in this area. It is well developed issue. I would like to support in favor of Constructal law as scientist in energy field. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amidpour ( talk • contribs) 11:57, 6 December 2017 (UTC) — Amidpour ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. reply
• Comment (moved from talk page - I believe this was supposed to go here -- Elmidae ( talk · contribs) 13:38, 6 December 2017 (UTC)) Constructal theory is put forward on the basis on thermodynamic optimization, which provides a rationale for the unified explanation of the fundamental causes of the formation of various flow structures in nature as well as provides significant guidance for the structure design of various flow systems in the engineering field. I have been working in this aspect since two years ago. I have got a series of outcomes in this field.As a doctoral candidate, I would like to be a supporter back up Constructal Law. Jiang You ( talk) 12:33, 6 December 2017 (UTC) — Jiang You ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. reply

• Comment Constructal Law page should be strongly kept in Wikipedia. It gives a new point of view to all scientists and students. It is old, very useful and well established. It provides us to understand the patterns of animate and inanimate systems in the nature. With the help of Constructal Law, we can predict the other patterns such geological and physical processes, and social organization. Additionally, it shows us the evolution of the systems. Umitgunes1 ( talk) 20:21, 6 December 2017 (UTC) — Umitgunes1 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. reply
• What's with the wave of new accounts attempting to keep this article today? Natureium ( talk) 20:25, 6 December 2017 (UTC) reply

  Whatever the reason, I put {{ notavote}} at the top. !dave 20:30, 6 December 2017 (UTC) reply

  I think we should require COI disclosures from anyone making a "Keep" vote, to disclose whether they are Bejan's current or former students or collaborators. HCA ( talk) 23:10, 6 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Keep ---Constructal law is widely used in many fields of nature and engineering, and plays a very important role in improving the performances of transport systems. In the world, many scholars carry out performance optimizations of transport systems by using this theory, therefore, the Constructal law existed in Wikipedia is very necessary.--Huijun 02:00, 7 December 2017‎ — 117.136.83.111 ( talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Comment Constructal Law page should be kept in Wikipedia. Constructal law has been used for many years in the field and my academic dissertation quoted Constructal theory as my dissertation's key word. Many people in my field have accept such calling and quote it in academic papers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.103.154.252 ( talk) 03:11, 7 December 2017 (UTC) — 119.103.154.252 ( talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. reply
• Comment Four more named SPAs and an SPA IP have appeared on the article's talk page to support keeping the article. Meters ( talk) 03:14, 7 December 2017 (UTC) reply
• Keep I've searched for non-primary sources, especially sources that don't contain Bejan's contributions. From conferences focused on constructal law (at institutions, for example like Duke University) [1] to independent scholarly papers on the subject from global repositories like those at Harvard and other institutions, [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] the topic clears Wikipedia's general notability guidelines. It'll be unfortunate if the article is merged with Bejan's profile, because clearly, as per my research, whether or not he propounded the term (I would wish that too be properly investigated), the topic is now significantly discussed in academic circles independent of Bejan. Merging it to his profile would be unencyclopedic. Of course, if the article is kept, cleanup is required. Lourdes 05:26, 7 December 2017 (UTC) reply

A couple of things by Umberto Lucia, and some letters responding to it. Most of the cited materials are letters or junk journals, not peer reviewed articles. Some mention the word "constructal" but don't call it a law (rightly - it isn't, it's a conjecture, not even a theory). Virtually all the peer reviewed articles matching "constructal law" have Bejan as a co-author, and many of the balance are only one step removed (i.e. at least one author is a co-author of Bejan). This has all the hallmarks of a crank theory. To write a WP:NPOV article we need to include independent scholarly discussion of the status of the purported law. That is really hard to find. It is, as multiple comments above make clear, almost universally ignored. Guy ( Help!) 13:37, 7 December 2017 (UTC) reply

I agree with Guy's assessment here. XOR'easter ( talk) 15:28, 7 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Hi JzG, XOR'easter, I can understand your point of view. If I can get some more clarity, it'll assist my understanding. For example, Physica A (which I sourced from http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013PhyA..392.6284L) is supposed to be peer-reviewed, have been set up in 1921, published by Elsevier. It discusses "constructal law" by full title, contents and exhaustive descriptions and doesn't seem to be a junk publication. Additionally, why would Duke University or Nanjing University hold conferences titling it "Constructal Law Conference" if the topic were a crank theory? [10] [11] I also notice books like this and reliable media covering "Constructal Law" and Bejan's work; for example Cosmos, [12] Quartz, [13] Tech Times, [14] National Geographic, [15] South China Morning Post, [16] The Wall Street Journal, [17] etc. Where am I going wrong? I'm open to changing my opinion. Lourdes 18:04, 7 December 2017 (UTC) reply

Well, Duke is his home institution - if he's got money, he can have a conference on whatever he wants. That doesn't mean Duke endorses it, only that he happens to work there. I recently hosted a conference at my university, and the total process with the administration was "This will make us look good and like leaders in the field, based only on my say-so" "Ok, have some money to do it." HCA ( talk) 20:22, 7 December 2017 (UTC) reply

HCA, that's a good point about Duke. Would you say the same about Nanjing University? I'll also appreciate a review of the other sources I've listed here, including the mainstream media sources. I realize the question here which many editors including you are addressing is, if the idea is not accepted by the scientific community, should we remove the article? One possible guidance is provided in Wikipedia:Fringe theories#Notability versus acceptance, which describes: "Just because an idea is not accepted by most experts does not mean it should be removed from Wikipedia. The threshold for whether a topic should be included in Wikipedia as an article is generally covered by notability guidelines." It further mentions: "Ideas that have been rejected, are widely considered to be absurd or pseudoscientific, only of historical interest, or primarily the realm of science fiction, should be documented as such, using reliable sources." So the question I'm grappling with is, are the sources I've listed unreliable? If yes, I'll change my !vote. I'll request your review and of Guy's above of the said sources I've listed. Thanks, Lourdes 01:31, 8 December 2017 (UTC) reply

I couldn't find enough info on the other conference, sorry. I think your comment on notability vs acceptance is an excellent point, and the sources cited *do* speak to notability - I knew of the idea long before the WP page existed. The problem is that, as far as I can tell, constructal "theory" hasn't spread far beyond the "academic offspring" of Bejan, which seems to indicate it should be part of his page, and that there hasn't been a definitive takedown in the scientific literature (it's on my to-do list), which means that any page on it will be one-sided, which grates at me. It sort of falls into that weird range where it's not crack-pot enough to be funny to mock, but it's not meritorious enough to warrant formal responses. HCA ( talk) 14:54, 8 December 2017 (UTC) reply

And as a consequence of that absence in the literature, it's not really possible to write a full article on constructal "theory" in an NPOV way. Such is the unfortunate failure mode of the in-between cases. XOR'easter ( talk) 17:11, 8 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Illustrative Example - Consider someone else and their defining idea: Alan_Feduccia, who opposes the idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs (instead, he posits a non-dinosaurian archosaur as an ancestor). This idea is widely ridiculed in the paleontological community, with no good evidence or arguments, and correspondingly only appears on his WP:BIO page. However, by "traditional metrics" (journal articles, books, having students who continue to promote the idea, even occaisional popular press acknowledgement), it is "well published and well known". The key is that, however well-published, it's also horseshit. Simply being able to publish is not, necessarily, proof against WP:FRINGE. I could make the same argument against the Aquatic_ape_hypothesis, which only retains a page, really, because a) it's a useful central source for why the idea is wrong, and b) several editors and even an admin with clear violations of WP:AXE insist on keeping it. There are more, but the point is: while lack of publication is strong evidence of WP:FRINGE, presence is not proof against it - it also depends upon scientific merits. HCA ( talk) 20:22, 7 December 2017 (UTC) reply
• Merge a summary into the Adrian Bejan article. While reading the article, a couple of things struck me. One is that, though it claims to be a law of physics, there doesn't appear to be any actual physics in it (at least not as written - I haven't read any of the sources). It's just lots of vague claims, but they're not pinned down to anything concrete that you could write as formulae - and there's no derivation of or evidence for the claims offered. Someone above said that it's "not even wrong", and I can see why - I see no predictive capability and nothing testable in it, even though the article claims there are such things (and predicting trees doesn't count). Anyway, that's just my preambling way of saying it's obvious fringe (and in my view, with no apparent scientific validity), but what matters is notability - and as others have said above, I don't see there are enough supporting reliable sources for it to have an article of its own - certainly not one as lengthy, one-sided and uncritical as this one. Boing! said Zebedee ( talk) 21:09, 7 December 2017 (UTC) reply
• Keep - Maybe I can help you understand the point of keeping the article: constructal law (theory) has already been rooted in academic environments, and not only. Conference in the Aula Library of the Romanian Academy, Conference Roumaine de Thermotechnique, Galați (Romania), 2001, Publishing House: The General Association of Engineers in Romania, The constructional analysis of Romanian existentialism, Prof. PhD. Nicolae VASILE, Valahia University, Târgoviște, Romania, The General Association of Engineers in Romania, release of a book - AGIR, release of a book - AGIR, A Romanian physicist is among the top 100 scientists in the world. He developed a biology theory that amazed the world, Andrei Laslau, National Geographic Romania - The Nature is constructal, Descoperă.ro - The future will be constructal. PheonixRo ( talk) 22:43, 7 December 2017 (UTC) reply

  You have already !voted "Keep" above and you're not allowed to do it twice, so I have struck this one. Boing! said Zebedee ( talk) 23:07, 7 December 2017 (UTC) reply

  PheonixRo, if you want to convince me, tell me how the "improving currents" can be reconciled with the body shapes of the stonefish and Leafy_seadragon (both of which became LESS streamlined over evolutionary time) and taxa like the Horseshoe_crab which have been morphologically static for hundreds of millions of years. Because as far as I'm concerned, both examples prove constructal law false. HCA ( talk) 23:53, 7 December 2017 (UTC) reply

  And just out of interest, as this supposed law of physics is all about something called flow, what are the units of flow? We have things like mass which can be expressed in kg, force in Newtons, energy in joules, entropy in joules per kelvin, but I can't see any such thing for flow and I'd genuinely like to be educated on it. Boing! said Zebedee ( talk) 12:57, 8 December 2017 (UTC) reply

• Keep - The Constructal Law page must be maintained, not deleted. The Constructal Law is a most useful and established field in science.

-- Awadm3 ( talk) 19:39, 8 December 2017 (UTC) — Awadm3 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. reply

• Comment I don't often pay that much attention to AfDs, so perhaps all the posting here by SPAs is normal, but is there a list of entertaining AfDs somewhere? This must be getting close to making that list. Natureium ( talk) 20:11, 8 December 2017 (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.