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.
To the extent the article is accurate and unbiased (which is very small), it is not a notable philosophy of mathematics. Note on category choice: I cannot tell whether a legitimate article on postmodernism in mathematics would be "Science and Technology", "Society Topics", or possibly "Fiction". (Much of what is accepted by post-modern journals is fiction.) (changed !vote below) —
Arthur Rubin(talk)21:10, 27 March 2019 (UTC)reply
Delete: Article is almost entirely based on the work of two authors:
Paul Ernest and Mohammad Moslehian. This does not really seem to be a major school of thought.
WP:NFRINGE probably applies as there isn't much independent coverage of the subject. Also does not seem to pass
WP:GNG. —
MarkH21 (
talk)
05:28, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
@
7&6=thirteen: I took a quick look through the first couple pages of each set of search results, and most of what I see isn't using the term in a way that's related to the subject of the article. I'm not automatically saying there's not enough out there, but just going, "Oh look...search hits!" isn't really enough here. I think in order to make a case for keeping, you need to actually find a chunk of these that are actually related to the topic of the article, and to satisfy
WP:NFRINGE, you need to find other sources that discuss this as a field besides just a relative handful of adherents. –
Deacon Vorbis (
carbon •
videos)
12:23, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
The case to be made here is the case for deletion – that is the motion before us. The evidence of the sources is that the topic is sufficiently notable that there are sensible
alternatives to deletion and it is our
policy to prefer these. Talk of fringe is ridiculous because that's for silly stuff like
Paul is dead. The source I presented is a serious book - notable enough to have an
article of its own.
Andrew D. (
talk)
13:47, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
Comment My review of sources reveals, among other things, that there are lots of sources that disagree with the analytical and philsophical model encompassed by Postmodern mathematics. I think they should be further fleshed out in our article.
Even if the content of the article appears in sources,
WP:COMMONSENSE excludes to keep in Wikipedia an article that presents as "figures" of the subject people who have nothing to do with postmodernism, such as Wittgenstein, Popper and Wilkinson. Also, the article presents Popper's criterion of falsifiability as a concept of postmodern mathematics, when it is a criterion for distinguishing science from
pseudoscience, which immediately implies that mathematics is a science, while postmodern mathematics is a pseudoscience. Are you serious when asserting that such fallacies must be kept?
D.Lazard (
talk)
16:28, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
Yes, calling Popperian falsificationism "postmodern" is just strange. I get the feeling that this article is at the end of a long chain of oversimplifications.
XOR'easter (
talk)
16:54, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
Redirect to
Philosophy of mathematics, which is not a great article, but which is better, since it isn't full of
WP:OR and excessively broad claims about what postmodernists as a whole believe. The mere existence of sources on a topic does not mean that a given article on that topic is worth keeping, and the problems with this one are too deep to be fixable through ordinary editing. Instead, it would require a top-down rewrite.
XOR'easter (
talk)
15:50, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
A redirect would not make
philosophy of mathematics longer. I did not suggest a merge, because I do not think this article has content worth merging; as I said, I believe that it would require rewriting from scratch to be acceptable.
XOR'easter (
talk)
16:50, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
Comment:For the three !votes saying that the article meets
WP:GNG due to the two authors' works already in the article, aren't those sources not
independent (which GNG requires)? If two people invent a theory, their own articles about the theory do not count as independent reliable sources on their theory. —
MarkH21 (
talk)
18:05, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
Comment Reference 5, which is cited more than any other, is a
broken link to a paper in
a journal that appears to be
Paul Ernest's personal project, and whose
website is down. I think it may also be incorrectly attributed;
elsewhere it is listed as a single-author publication by Izmirli alone. All sorts of red flags are going up regarding the sourcing of this page.
XOR'easter (
talk)
18:32, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
As I said earlier, "The mere existence of sources on a topic does not mean that a given article on that topic is worth keeping, and the problems with this one are too deep to be fixable through ordinary editing." So, Q.E. not D.
XOR'easter (
talk)
19:38, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
That book's description says that it "traces the root of postmodern theory to a debate on the foundations of mathematics, early in the 20th century then compares developments in mathematics to what took place in the arts and humanities". This is about how postmodernism arose from a debate about the foundations of mathematics (i.e.
Postmodernism#History), not this "postmodern mathematics" construed as postmodernism applied to the philosophy of mathematics. —
MarkH21 (
talk)
19:44, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
As nominator, change to Redirect (nothing accurate and reliably sourced to merge) to
Philosophy of mathematics. Deletion is still possible, as it's more "uncertainty as a mathematical philosophy" (I originally wrote "uncertainty in mathematics", but that would be also a potentially different article) than something called "postmodern mathematics", which I'm not sure exists and is sufficiently notable, even for a redirect. I'm more of a
formalist in mathematics, myself, so I do not feel qualified to comment on whether there is a notable field of "postmodern mathematics". I can only assert that this article is not about "postmodern mathematics", and
XOR'easter (
talk·contribs) points out the main, potentially accurate, relevant reference is misattributed, and he cannot determine whether it is accurately used. —
Arthur Rubin(talk)00:36, 29 March 2019 (UTC)reply
Comment. Changed my reasoning, but still redirect. Nothing here should be in an article on
postmodern mathematics, so I'm neutral whether an optimal approach would be Delete and redirect or just redirect. If there is anything accurate here, an article on "uncertainty as a mathematical philosophy" might be recovered. —
Arthur Rubin(talk)06:03, 30 March 2019 (UTC)reply
Delete, redirect or delete and redirect This looks to be another
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of General Caste in Sikhism (2nd nomination) where the mathematics editors all say one thing, and the deletion-focused editors ("deletionists"?) tend to say something else. I don't know anything about this topic, but neither do Andrew or 7&6. Wikipedia will never get better if we allow articles on specialized topics to be controlled by "general interest" editors rather than the ones who actually know what they're talking about.
Hijiri 88 (
聖やや)
09:33, 30 March 2019 (UTC)reply
Speaking as a math editor, it is not clear to me that the article is/should be about mathematics per se, and therefore not clear to me that math-focused editors are the correct body of experts. (I do not plan to take a position on this AfD.) --
JBL (
talk)
01:15, 31 March 2019 (UTC)reply
@
Joel B. Lewis: I'm not sure what your point is. Your being a mathematics editor doesn't actually discredit my argument unless you are arguing to keep the article, since it's still the case that every mathematics editor who has taken a "side" in this discussion has said delete or redirect, and that all the editors who have said keep are general AFD contributors. I'm sure in the above-linked Sikhism case some random editors of Indian topics saw the discussion and decided not to comment because they didn't care either way, but that's basically beside the point. Is your point that the article is more about postmodernism than mathematics? That would be fine, except that no one here gives the impression that they came here from the philosophy deletion list.
Hijiri 88 (
聖やや)
06:22, 31 March 2019 (UTC)reply
I think that is the point he was making (correct me please if incorrect) and I agree, the article seems to be more about the philosophy of mathematics than mathematics. Opinions from editors from the philosophy wikiproject / delsort would certainly be useful here. —
MarkH21 (
talk)
06:43, 31 March 2019 (UTC)reply
To the extent that the article describes non-mainstream theories of mathematics, it's about uncertainty as a philosophy of mathematics. Is that part of postmodernism? I (and the sources) don't seem to think so. —
Arthur Rubin(talk)08:19, 31 March 2019 (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.
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.
To the extent the article is accurate and unbiased (which is very small), it is not a notable philosophy of mathematics. Note on category choice: I cannot tell whether a legitimate article on postmodernism in mathematics would be "Science and Technology", "Society Topics", or possibly "Fiction". (Much of what is accepted by post-modern journals is fiction.) (changed !vote below) —
Arthur Rubin(talk)21:10, 27 March 2019 (UTC)reply
Delete: Article is almost entirely based on the work of two authors:
Paul Ernest and Mohammad Moslehian. This does not really seem to be a major school of thought.
WP:NFRINGE probably applies as there isn't much independent coverage of the subject. Also does not seem to pass
WP:GNG. —
MarkH21 (
talk)
05:28, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
@
7&6=thirteen: I took a quick look through the first couple pages of each set of search results, and most of what I see isn't using the term in a way that's related to the subject of the article. I'm not automatically saying there's not enough out there, but just going, "Oh look...search hits!" isn't really enough here. I think in order to make a case for keeping, you need to actually find a chunk of these that are actually related to the topic of the article, and to satisfy
WP:NFRINGE, you need to find other sources that discuss this as a field besides just a relative handful of adherents. –
Deacon Vorbis (
carbon •
videos)
12:23, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
The case to be made here is the case for deletion – that is the motion before us. The evidence of the sources is that the topic is sufficiently notable that there are sensible
alternatives to deletion and it is our
policy to prefer these. Talk of fringe is ridiculous because that's for silly stuff like
Paul is dead. The source I presented is a serious book - notable enough to have an
article of its own.
Andrew D. (
talk)
13:47, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
Comment My review of sources reveals, among other things, that there are lots of sources that disagree with the analytical and philsophical model encompassed by Postmodern mathematics. I think they should be further fleshed out in our article.
Even if the content of the article appears in sources,
WP:COMMONSENSE excludes to keep in Wikipedia an article that presents as "figures" of the subject people who have nothing to do with postmodernism, such as Wittgenstein, Popper and Wilkinson. Also, the article presents Popper's criterion of falsifiability as a concept of postmodern mathematics, when it is a criterion for distinguishing science from
pseudoscience, which immediately implies that mathematics is a science, while postmodern mathematics is a pseudoscience. Are you serious when asserting that such fallacies must be kept?
D.Lazard (
talk)
16:28, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
Yes, calling Popperian falsificationism "postmodern" is just strange. I get the feeling that this article is at the end of a long chain of oversimplifications.
XOR'easter (
talk)
16:54, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
Redirect to
Philosophy of mathematics, which is not a great article, but which is better, since it isn't full of
WP:OR and excessively broad claims about what postmodernists as a whole believe. The mere existence of sources on a topic does not mean that a given article on that topic is worth keeping, and the problems with this one are too deep to be fixable through ordinary editing. Instead, it would require a top-down rewrite.
XOR'easter (
talk)
15:50, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
A redirect would not make
philosophy of mathematics longer. I did not suggest a merge, because I do not think this article has content worth merging; as I said, I believe that it would require rewriting from scratch to be acceptable.
XOR'easter (
talk)
16:50, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
Comment:For the three !votes saying that the article meets
WP:GNG due to the two authors' works already in the article, aren't those sources not
independent (which GNG requires)? If two people invent a theory, their own articles about the theory do not count as independent reliable sources on their theory. —
MarkH21 (
talk)
18:05, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
Comment Reference 5, which is cited more than any other, is a
broken link to a paper in
a journal that appears to be
Paul Ernest's personal project, and whose
website is down. I think it may also be incorrectly attributed;
elsewhere it is listed as a single-author publication by Izmirli alone. All sorts of red flags are going up regarding the sourcing of this page.
XOR'easter (
talk)
18:32, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
As I said earlier, "The mere existence of sources on a topic does not mean that a given article on that topic is worth keeping, and the problems with this one are too deep to be fixable through ordinary editing." So, Q.E. not D.
XOR'easter (
talk)
19:38, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
That book's description says that it "traces the root of postmodern theory to a debate on the foundations of mathematics, early in the 20th century then compares developments in mathematics to what took place in the arts and humanities". This is about how postmodernism arose from a debate about the foundations of mathematics (i.e.
Postmodernism#History), not this "postmodern mathematics" construed as postmodernism applied to the philosophy of mathematics. —
MarkH21 (
talk)
19:44, 28 March 2019 (UTC)reply
As nominator, change to Redirect (nothing accurate and reliably sourced to merge) to
Philosophy of mathematics. Deletion is still possible, as it's more "uncertainty as a mathematical philosophy" (I originally wrote "uncertainty in mathematics", but that would be also a potentially different article) than something called "postmodern mathematics", which I'm not sure exists and is sufficiently notable, even for a redirect. I'm more of a
formalist in mathematics, myself, so I do not feel qualified to comment on whether there is a notable field of "postmodern mathematics". I can only assert that this article is not about "postmodern mathematics", and
XOR'easter (
talk·contribs) points out the main, potentially accurate, relevant reference is misattributed, and he cannot determine whether it is accurately used. —
Arthur Rubin(talk)00:36, 29 March 2019 (UTC)reply
Comment. Changed my reasoning, but still redirect. Nothing here should be in an article on
postmodern mathematics, so I'm neutral whether an optimal approach would be Delete and redirect or just redirect. If there is anything accurate here, an article on "uncertainty as a mathematical philosophy" might be recovered. —
Arthur Rubin(talk)06:03, 30 March 2019 (UTC)reply
Delete, redirect or delete and redirect This looks to be another
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of General Caste in Sikhism (2nd nomination) where the mathematics editors all say one thing, and the deletion-focused editors ("deletionists"?) tend to say something else. I don't know anything about this topic, but neither do Andrew or 7&6. Wikipedia will never get better if we allow articles on specialized topics to be controlled by "general interest" editors rather than the ones who actually know what they're talking about.
Hijiri 88 (
聖やや)
09:33, 30 March 2019 (UTC)reply
Speaking as a math editor, it is not clear to me that the article is/should be about mathematics per se, and therefore not clear to me that math-focused editors are the correct body of experts. (I do not plan to take a position on this AfD.) --
JBL (
talk)
01:15, 31 March 2019 (UTC)reply
@
Joel B. Lewis: I'm not sure what your point is. Your being a mathematics editor doesn't actually discredit my argument unless you are arguing to keep the article, since it's still the case that every mathematics editor who has taken a "side" in this discussion has said delete or redirect, and that all the editors who have said keep are general AFD contributors. I'm sure in the above-linked Sikhism case some random editors of Indian topics saw the discussion and decided not to comment because they didn't care either way, but that's basically beside the point. Is your point that the article is more about postmodernism than mathematics? That would be fine, except that no one here gives the impression that they came here from the philosophy deletion list.
Hijiri 88 (
聖やや)
06:22, 31 March 2019 (UTC)reply
I think that is the point he was making (correct me please if incorrect) and I agree, the article seems to be more about the philosophy of mathematics than mathematics. Opinions from editors from the philosophy wikiproject / delsort would certainly be useful here. —
MarkH21 (
talk)
06:43, 31 March 2019 (UTC)reply
To the extent that the article describes non-mainstream theories of mathematics, it's about uncertainty as a philosophy of mathematics. Is that part of postmodernism? I (and the sources) don't seem to think so. —
Arthur Rubin(talk)08:19, 31 March 2019 (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.