The result was delete. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:17, 1 August 2008 (UTC) reply
Two non-notable people (Kauffman and Sabelli) invented this term ten years ago for a recursive function that has an oscillating parameter. Since then, no one else anywhere in math, physics, or statistics has picked up on the term. The term therefore has no notability and generally the article is serving as a soapbox for one particular user's pet theories on Bios theory (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bios theory. Wikipedia is not a free webhost for marginal original research. ScienceApologist ( talk) 20:13, 27 July 2008 (UTC) reply
Comment: Hi, all! As a
former
Wikipedian, I will offer an extended comment rather than a vote. I want to try to explain what I view as a hidden agenda on the part of
User:Lakinekaki, creator of the article under discussion here.
IMO the ideas promoted in several WP articles by Lakinekaki fall within the pseudoscience genre I call "living universe"; authors writing in this genre include James Rose, James Lovelock, and Hector Sabelli.
The basic rules vios here are easily verified:
WP:COI vios: User:Lakinekaki is IRL Lazar Kovacevic (see this previous AfD debate for details), who is or was affiliated with the Chicago Center for Creative Development of Hector Sabelli, which in my view cannot be characterized as a legitimate scientific institute. Kovacevic has coauthored several papers on so-called "bios theory" with Sabelli, but he has consistently failed to disclose this close personal connection to the ideas he is writing about at WP (for example by pointing out the connection in the talk pages of his articles).
WP:FRINGE vios: Kovacevic has repeatedly tried to present Sabelli's "bios theory" as mainstream, but the only papers on this so-called "theory" are authored or coauthored by Sabelli, and they appear to have been cited only by the authors themselves. Kovacevic provided a link to a paper by Sabelli e-published at the Ceptual Institute (formerly Integrity/Ceptual Institute) of James Neil Rose (Minden, NV), but this is apparently yet another one-man "research institute" which discusses such topics as " Gaia, teleology, Cyber-cosmos, Diakosmesis, Cyberneomonasticism, Integrity Dynamics, Novelty". Rose states his position like this:
The Universe is sentient and whole at every level, in every act.
It is good science. It is good spiritual enlightenment.
It is good humanity.
— James Neil Rose
From this brief snippet it should already be clear that "Ceptual Institute" cannot be characterized as promoting mainstream science. Rose earned an undergraduate degree in biology (1969) and worked as a art dealer and coin dealer; he is not a scientist.
Hector C. Sabelli is a psychiatrist by training, not a scientist. His coauthor Lazar Kovacevic is an electrical engineer by training; his other coauthor, Louis H. Kauffman, is a mathematician (more later on that!). Sabelli has written some more or less mainstream stuff in his own field, and has also written at least two fringe books on his so-called "bios theory".
In "Bios Theory of Creative Evolution", Sabelli summarizes his basic idea like this:
Bios is a theory regarding the natural creation of complexity from simple elementary forms. Fundamental physical, biological and human processes are autodynamic and creative, rather than determined or aleatory; they causally generate diversity, novelty, and complexity. This is bios.
... Bios is also found in the series of prime numbers, indicating that bios is a fundamental mathematical process. Mathematical recursions show that biotic patterns are generated by the recursion (action) of bipolar and bidimensional oppositions (e.g. sinusoidal waveforms) and conservation. In nature, bios may be generated by the interaction of similar and universal processes: (1) action, the flow of energy in time; (2) the rotation of harmonic opposites; (3) the conservation of stable structures. At the physical level, they are exemplified by physical action (Planck's quantum) and unipolar gravity, bipolar electromagnetic force and the tripolar nuclear forces that generate stable material structures. These factors appear to be necessary and sufficient to generate life-like (biotic) patterns. These forms reoccur in a homologous fashion within and between the multiple levels of organization they contribute to create. ... While current discourse on complexity stress random change and puts forward the emergence of order out of chaos, mathematical recursions show that order deterministically generates chaos, and the diffusion of chaos generates bios. Biological evolution is a creative development in which (1) causal actions (not just random mutations) generate biological variation; (2) bipolar feedback (synergy and antagonism, not only Darwinian struggle and competition) generates information (diversification, novelty and complexity); (3) connections (of molecules, genes, species) construct systems in which simple processes have priority for survival but complex processes acquire supremacy.
— Hector Sabelli
In other words, Sabelli et al. claim that natural selection is dominated by a murky alleged "creative principle" they call "bios", an alleged tendency toward complexity. This could be called a neo- Chardinian/ Lamarckian notion, with the twist that Sabelli claims (quite incorrectly) that his principle is founded in modern nonlinear dynamical systems theory. Thus for example in addition to his Chicago Center, it seems that Sabelli is also associated with a Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology and Life Sciences and a Bios Group. Sabelli and Kovacevic claim in another paper that the distribution of galaxies is also determined by this alleged "bios principle", and they appear to suggest that "bios theory" might offer a cure for various psychiatric conditions. ( Psychoceramics not included?)
I think it is obvious from these excerpts why the few mathematicians/biologists/physicists who have heard of "bios theory" consider it classic pseudoscience, chockfull of ecletic terminology (e.g. according to Sabelli, gravity is "unipolar", electromagnetism is "bipolar", and " nuclear forces" are "tripolar") and impressive buzzwords hijacked from a real theory ( nonlinear dynamical systems). But here things take a highly technical turn, and unfortunately, as Kovacevic appears to concede in a policy page discussion at wikimedia.org, non-mathematicians will probably have to take the word of the WikiProject Mathematics members here for the following:
Louis H. Kauffman is a distinguished mathematician, best known for introducing the bracket polynomial which is one step on the easiest path to defining the HOMFLY polynomial in knot theory, and which Kauffman used to establish an intriguing connection between statistical mechanics and knot theory. Since I have often written about this topic enthusiastically in the past (e.g. old UseNet postings written long before Wikipedia even existed!), it should be clear that my enjoyment of Kauffman's earlier work is unfeigned. Nonetheless, I have the impression that Kauffman has long had a reputation for generating some pretty odd ideas, and IMO his work with Sabelli can at best be located on the borderline between fringe and cranky. (One might recall such precedents as Isaac Newton for the proposition that even mathematicians can have some rather odd ideas!) This circumstance presents special WP:BLP problems; Wikipedia's track record in preventing bios of (arguably) "notable fringe figures" from becoming slanted toward wikiwoo has not been good. For what it's worth, my experience from 2006 suggests that the best approach is to keep such wikbios very short--- and protected. To avoid misleading readers, one must very briefly mention both mainstream accomplishments (bracket polynomial) and fringe claims (bios theory), and leave it at that. Protection is neccessary to avoid endless and ultimately pointless content disputes with User:Lakinekaki, spamming of very long C.V.s, and so forth.
I am sure it will be obvious to mathematicians with a knowledge of nonlinear dynamical systems (since I once wrote a diss on a topic in dynamical systems, I hope I can include myself in this group!), from what has already been said here, that Sabelli et al. are incorrect in claiming that nonlinear dynamical systems theory (real math) supports "bios theory" (pseudomath). Pseudomathematics is unfortunately a genuine and growing phenomenon, which often seems motivated by extrascientific agendas clustered around creationism/ deism: I recall for example widely promoted claims that ergodic theory (real math) supports Dembski's " irreducible complexity" (pseudomath), or that statistics (real math) supports " bible codes" (pseudomath).
WP:COAT vios: In particular, this audience will recognize the origins of the so-called "process equation" in the circle map (real math) discussed by V. I. Arnold in connection with the phenomenon of Arnold tongues (real math), and this audience will immediately recognize the dynamical systems terms which are misused by Sabelli to (unintentional) comic effect. (To be fair, I point out one exception: Sabelli is using homology in the biological sense, not the mathematical sense!) Several pages at the website of the Chicago Center for Creative Development strongly suggest an extrascientific motivation for "bios theory":
Biotic development illustrates how evolution may be expected to continue creating an attractor of infinite complexity rather than tending to equilibrium. This provides a mathematical metaphor for God compatible with contemporary science and with mental health principles...process theory regards philosophizing about God as sacred art.
— creativebios.com
Note that Sabelli himself has also edited Asymmetry, adding a citation to his book on "bios theory" and a description of his views. At the present time, that article is sorely unbalanced; in particular, it lacks such obligatory mainstream citations as the seminal book by Hermann Weyl.
I'd like to end my extended comment by urging any mathematically literate students who don't yet know much about nonlinear dynamical systems to read some very enjoyable undergraduate level books which offer a fine overview of this wonderful subject (including Arnold tongues, time series, and many other wonderful things which are dreadfully abused by Sabelli et al.):
Enjoy! --- CH ( talk) 18:04, 28 July 2008 (UTC) reply
Excerpt:
WP:N A topic is notable if it has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial published works with sources independent of the subject itself and each other. ... The "multiple" qualification is intentionally not specific as to number, except that it be more than one. ... multiplicity of works ... is one researcher or journalist writing and publishing a series of different articles on a single subject. One rationale for this criterion is that the fact that people independent of a subject have noted that subject in depth (by creating multiple non-trivial published works about it) demonstrates that it is notable.
Note that policies evolve, and in my opinion this represents a 'minimal' threshold of notability for inclusion, which can become higher in the future by requiring in depth review by the secondary source.
Update: indeed, above policy definition from the time of bios deletion does now include requirement for secondary source review.
End of excerpt.
The result was delete. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:17, 1 August 2008 (UTC) reply
Two non-notable people (Kauffman and Sabelli) invented this term ten years ago for a recursive function that has an oscillating parameter. Since then, no one else anywhere in math, physics, or statistics has picked up on the term. The term therefore has no notability and generally the article is serving as a soapbox for one particular user's pet theories on Bios theory (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bios theory. Wikipedia is not a free webhost for marginal original research. ScienceApologist ( talk) 20:13, 27 July 2008 (UTC) reply
Comment: Hi, all! As a
former
Wikipedian, I will offer an extended comment rather than a vote. I want to try to explain what I view as a hidden agenda on the part of
User:Lakinekaki, creator of the article under discussion here.
IMO the ideas promoted in several WP articles by Lakinekaki fall within the pseudoscience genre I call "living universe"; authors writing in this genre include James Rose, James Lovelock, and Hector Sabelli.
The basic rules vios here are easily verified:
WP:COI vios: User:Lakinekaki is IRL Lazar Kovacevic (see this previous AfD debate for details), who is or was affiliated with the Chicago Center for Creative Development of Hector Sabelli, which in my view cannot be characterized as a legitimate scientific institute. Kovacevic has coauthored several papers on so-called "bios theory" with Sabelli, but he has consistently failed to disclose this close personal connection to the ideas he is writing about at WP (for example by pointing out the connection in the talk pages of his articles).
WP:FRINGE vios: Kovacevic has repeatedly tried to present Sabelli's "bios theory" as mainstream, but the only papers on this so-called "theory" are authored or coauthored by Sabelli, and they appear to have been cited only by the authors themselves. Kovacevic provided a link to a paper by Sabelli e-published at the Ceptual Institute (formerly Integrity/Ceptual Institute) of James Neil Rose (Minden, NV), but this is apparently yet another one-man "research institute" which discusses such topics as " Gaia, teleology, Cyber-cosmos, Diakosmesis, Cyberneomonasticism, Integrity Dynamics, Novelty". Rose states his position like this:
The Universe is sentient and whole at every level, in every act.
It is good science. It is good spiritual enlightenment.
It is good humanity.
— James Neil Rose
From this brief snippet it should already be clear that "Ceptual Institute" cannot be characterized as promoting mainstream science. Rose earned an undergraduate degree in biology (1969) and worked as a art dealer and coin dealer; he is not a scientist.
Hector C. Sabelli is a psychiatrist by training, not a scientist. His coauthor Lazar Kovacevic is an electrical engineer by training; his other coauthor, Louis H. Kauffman, is a mathematician (more later on that!). Sabelli has written some more or less mainstream stuff in his own field, and has also written at least two fringe books on his so-called "bios theory".
In "Bios Theory of Creative Evolution", Sabelli summarizes his basic idea like this:
Bios is a theory regarding the natural creation of complexity from simple elementary forms. Fundamental physical, biological and human processes are autodynamic and creative, rather than determined or aleatory; they causally generate diversity, novelty, and complexity. This is bios.
... Bios is also found in the series of prime numbers, indicating that bios is a fundamental mathematical process. Mathematical recursions show that biotic patterns are generated by the recursion (action) of bipolar and bidimensional oppositions (e.g. sinusoidal waveforms) and conservation. In nature, bios may be generated by the interaction of similar and universal processes: (1) action, the flow of energy in time; (2) the rotation of harmonic opposites; (3) the conservation of stable structures. At the physical level, they are exemplified by physical action (Planck's quantum) and unipolar gravity, bipolar electromagnetic force and the tripolar nuclear forces that generate stable material structures. These factors appear to be necessary and sufficient to generate life-like (biotic) patterns. These forms reoccur in a homologous fashion within and between the multiple levels of organization they contribute to create. ... While current discourse on complexity stress random change and puts forward the emergence of order out of chaos, mathematical recursions show that order deterministically generates chaos, and the diffusion of chaos generates bios. Biological evolution is a creative development in which (1) causal actions (not just random mutations) generate biological variation; (2) bipolar feedback (synergy and antagonism, not only Darwinian struggle and competition) generates information (diversification, novelty and complexity); (3) connections (of molecules, genes, species) construct systems in which simple processes have priority for survival but complex processes acquire supremacy.
— Hector Sabelli
In other words, Sabelli et al. claim that natural selection is dominated by a murky alleged "creative principle" they call "bios", an alleged tendency toward complexity. This could be called a neo- Chardinian/ Lamarckian notion, with the twist that Sabelli claims (quite incorrectly) that his principle is founded in modern nonlinear dynamical systems theory. Thus for example in addition to his Chicago Center, it seems that Sabelli is also associated with a Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology and Life Sciences and a Bios Group. Sabelli and Kovacevic claim in another paper that the distribution of galaxies is also determined by this alleged "bios principle", and they appear to suggest that "bios theory" might offer a cure for various psychiatric conditions. ( Psychoceramics not included?)
I think it is obvious from these excerpts why the few mathematicians/biologists/physicists who have heard of "bios theory" consider it classic pseudoscience, chockfull of ecletic terminology (e.g. according to Sabelli, gravity is "unipolar", electromagnetism is "bipolar", and " nuclear forces" are "tripolar") and impressive buzzwords hijacked from a real theory ( nonlinear dynamical systems). But here things take a highly technical turn, and unfortunately, as Kovacevic appears to concede in a policy page discussion at wikimedia.org, non-mathematicians will probably have to take the word of the WikiProject Mathematics members here for the following:
Louis H. Kauffman is a distinguished mathematician, best known for introducing the bracket polynomial which is one step on the easiest path to defining the HOMFLY polynomial in knot theory, and which Kauffman used to establish an intriguing connection between statistical mechanics and knot theory. Since I have often written about this topic enthusiastically in the past (e.g. old UseNet postings written long before Wikipedia even existed!), it should be clear that my enjoyment of Kauffman's earlier work is unfeigned. Nonetheless, I have the impression that Kauffman has long had a reputation for generating some pretty odd ideas, and IMO his work with Sabelli can at best be located on the borderline between fringe and cranky. (One might recall such precedents as Isaac Newton for the proposition that even mathematicians can have some rather odd ideas!) This circumstance presents special WP:BLP problems; Wikipedia's track record in preventing bios of (arguably) "notable fringe figures" from becoming slanted toward wikiwoo has not been good. For what it's worth, my experience from 2006 suggests that the best approach is to keep such wikbios very short--- and protected. To avoid misleading readers, one must very briefly mention both mainstream accomplishments (bracket polynomial) and fringe claims (bios theory), and leave it at that. Protection is neccessary to avoid endless and ultimately pointless content disputes with User:Lakinekaki, spamming of very long C.V.s, and so forth.
I am sure it will be obvious to mathematicians with a knowledge of nonlinear dynamical systems (since I once wrote a diss on a topic in dynamical systems, I hope I can include myself in this group!), from what has already been said here, that Sabelli et al. are incorrect in claiming that nonlinear dynamical systems theory (real math) supports "bios theory" (pseudomath). Pseudomathematics is unfortunately a genuine and growing phenomenon, which often seems motivated by extrascientific agendas clustered around creationism/ deism: I recall for example widely promoted claims that ergodic theory (real math) supports Dembski's " irreducible complexity" (pseudomath), or that statistics (real math) supports " bible codes" (pseudomath).
WP:COAT vios: In particular, this audience will recognize the origins of the so-called "process equation" in the circle map (real math) discussed by V. I. Arnold in connection with the phenomenon of Arnold tongues (real math), and this audience will immediately recognize the dynamical systems terms which are misused by Sabelli to (unintentional) comic effect. (To be fair, I point out one exception: Sabelli is using homology in the biological sense, not the mathematical sense!) Several pages at the website of the Chicago Center for Creative Development strongly suggest an extrascientific motivation for "bios theory":
Biotic development illustrates how evolution may be expected to continue creating an attractor of infinite complexity rather than tending to equilibrium. This provides a mathematical metaphor for God compatible with contemporary science and with mental health principles...process theory regards philosophizing about God as sacred art.
— creativebios.com
Note that Sabelli himself has also edited Asymmetry, adding a citation to his book on "bios theory" and a description of his views. At the present time, that article is sorely unbalanced; in particular, it lacks such obligatory mainstream citations as the seminal book by Hermann Weyl.
I'd like to end my extended comment by urging any mathematically literate students who don't yet know much about nonlinear dynamical systems to read some very enjoyable undergraduate level books which offer a fine overview of this wonderful subject (including Arnold tongues, time series, and many other wonderful things which are dreadfully abused by Sabelli et al.):
Enjoy! --- CH ( talk) 18:04, 28 July 2008 (UTC) reply
Excerpt:
WP:N A topic is notable if it has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial published works with sources independent of the subject itself and each other. ... The "multiple" qualification is intentionally not specific as to number, except that it be more than one. ... multiplicity of works ... is one researcher or journalist writing and publishing a series of different articles on a single subject. One rationale for this criterion is that the fact that people independent of a subject have noted that subject in depth (by creating multiple non-trivial published works about it) demonstrates that it is notable.
Note that policies evolve, and in my opinion this represents a 'minimal' threshold of notability for inclusion, which can become higher in the future by requiring in depth review by the secondary source.
Update: indeed, above policy definition from the time of bios deletion does now include requirement for secondary source review.
End of excerpt.