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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 all. Sr13 01:43, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of atheist Nobel laureates[edit]

AfDs for this article:
List of atheist Nobel laureates (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

No, your eyes do not deceive you. These articles have been renominated for deletion. Why? Because they don't belong in the encyclopedia. In the recent AfD discussion for List of atheist Nobel laureates, many issues were brought up as to the purpose of these articles, the most important being that many of the Keep votes were on the basis of "only delete this if the other lists are deleted". That's what I hope we can do here.

I must reiterate first and most importantly that the Nobel Prize is not given on the basis of religion. These lists are a textbook example of an irrelevant intersection between two characteristics, akin to creating lists of other award winners based on religion (imagine a List of Jewish Grammy winners or a List of Christian Academy Award winners). None of these lists, not a single one, explains why their religion was important, or how their religion influenced their work in the Nobel laureate's field. If, theoretically, there were a Nobel laureate whose work was influenced by their religion, then that would be notable...in that person's article.

The standard article flaws are also seen here. The lists, with the exception of the atheist one, are either poorly sourced or completely unsourced, and in the case of the atheist list, none of the sources indicate a relation between their atheism and their work. These articles serve no purpose and fill no knowledge gap. With the above in mind, I urge deletion.

Note: These lists were previously nominated for deletion over a month ago. They were nominated without the atheist list, which underwent a separate AfD discussion that was closed two days ago.

The pages nominated for deletion are:

  • Speedy close. The last AFD on these articles was closed only 2 days ago. Nothing has changed since then. JulesH 07:18, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The last AFD was on one article only. During this nomination, several people objected based on the fact that other crap exists. While this is a poor argument, this sort of joint nom allows all these lists which shouldn't exist to be deleted. Nil Einne 21:17, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy close. We've just done this one. If you disagree with the community decision then tough, bring up something new or at least give a decent interval of time. Regardless of the merits of these articles, and I really couldn't care less either way, this is an abuse of the AfD process. Nick mallory 07:45, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Did you guys even read what I wrote? Only the atheist one was closed two days ago, the rest were not. This is about the entire collection of lists and not just the one list. --Hemlock Martinis 07:48, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Joint nominations are always a bad idea and the Atheist list AfD, the one which closed two days ago, is the headline one. Presumably this was your choice, if so don't blame me for 'reading what you wrote'. The religion ones also survived AfD a month ago. Are you just going to keep nominating them till you happen to get your way? Nick mallory 08:16, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I was not behind either of the previous nominations, as you can see. Both of those AfDs were closed with no consensus, meaning they barely survived. There's nothing wrong with this nomination. --Hemlock Martinis 08:31, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough but there's nothing wrong with me thinking nominating something for an AfD two days after its last AfD is excessive. No consensus means no consensus, it doesn't mean 'barely survived'. Nick mallory 08:40, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Barely survived" is actually somewhat accurate though. There were very big delete majorities on both, and the lists were given the benefit of the doubt. Bulldog123 14:07, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to be missing the key point. Part of the reason for no consensus was because people were making silly arguments like WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. This concern is perfectly addressed in this nom and therefore it's perfectly appropriate to relist it now. It's not Hemlock's fault if the previous nominator screwed up, nor is it Hemlock's fault if people don't understand othercrapexists is a poor argument, nor is it Hemlock's fault if admins don't ignore such poor arguments. Nil Einne 21:30, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete per trivial intersection and over-categorization. For majority of these laureates, I doubt religion played an important role in their work. Corpx 07:59, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. It would be more appropriate to make each of these a category of each winner's article as needed. I say more appropriate in the sense that I don't think either is appropriate, but if one must exist, the category system would be better. Nicko (Talk•Contribs) 09:45, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all - Wikipedia is not a directory of loosely-associated topics (and in this case, religion and being a Nobel laureate is even less than loosely associated). The Nobel laureates on these lists have nothing in common other than coincidently having the same religion/non-religion/philosophy. And to preclude "oh but it's well sourced" - doesn't matter, the design of these lists is fundamentally flawed, and it's still synthesis of published material, with the possible goal to advance a position. – sgeureka t•c 10:52, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Additional comment. The inclusion criteria are way too unencyclopedic and trivial for these lists, and should be tightened to "Nobel laureate X is listed here because his religion Y significantly contributed to his Nobel Prize, see source Z" (see below). In this and only this case, I would switch my vote to keep. – sgeureka t•c 12:48, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete All Unless we can establish that religion and winning the Nobel Prize are somehow connected or relevant to one another, the categorization is trivial at best. Calgary 11:14, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy Close Not that I don't appreciate Hemlock's feeling that he/she knows better than everyone else who voted in the debate that was closed earlier in the week. I think I voted delete last week too, but what if everyone kept renominating an article, week after week? Let's close the debate again, and maybe you can nominate it next week. Mandsford 11:28, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • This AfD is about the bundle of articles. It's so we can get to the root of the problem, since as you must have noticed from the atheist AfD, a ton of Keeps were on the basis of only deleting if all of them were deleted. --Hemlock Martinis 18:10, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • If we're going to ignore the fact that a less contentious AFD than this one has just closed, then Keep, per all the reasons at the first AfD. Religious beliefs of leading thinkers is a notable topic (see [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]), therefore I see no reason not to keep a list of leading scientists by their religious beliefs. JulesH 11:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • In this case, the inclusion criterion should not be "Person X is a Nobel laureate of religion Y" (as it currently is; quote from List of atheist Nobel laureates: "This list include only those Nobel laureates who have called themselves atheists, identified as atheists by informed and impartial sources and those who have expressed disbelief in the existence of God.") but "Nobel laureate X is listed here because his religion Y significantly contributed to his Nobel Prize with the reason Z." (which is why User:Hemlock Martinis created this AfD, I guess, and I quite agree with his assertion). Also, your sources make a sole distinction between "atheistm and religion" (which obviously exists), not "atheism and religion A, B, C, and D". Therefore, that would mean merging all religious Nobel laureate into one list, which is probably not what you're advocating. – sgeureka t•c 12:48, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not a single one of those links explains why a Nobel Prize winner's religion was notable. In fact, only the first two even mention the Nobel Prize, and that was a tangential mention at best. --Hemlock Martinis 18:18, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as per JulesH, religious beliefs of leading thinkers, and especially scientists are, for better or worse, a much discussed topic, giving these lists much more relevance than other arbitrary lists one could imagine like Jewish Grammy winners. All the ones except the atheist one are in serious need of sourcing though - and should only contain people who have made some verifiable public decleration of belief or disbelief. Iain99 12:04, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The atheist one needs sourcing too - none of the sources explain why their atheism is important. --Hemlock Martinis 18:18, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy Close per Mandsford. --Charlene 13:13, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I'm inclined to delete all of the above articles per nom, Sgeureka, Calgary. The link between religious affiliation (which can of course range from "baptized and that's it" to "fanatic") and scientific research stretches the idea of correlation to breaking point. Religion, if anything, has a stifling and certainly not beneficial influence on science, unless you're willing to call theology a science. But I agree with Mansford we should cool off for some time before discussing this AfD again. --Targeman 13:59, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete All Hemlock mentioned very clearly the reason for this fast renom in his deletion rationale, so I highly disagree with the many "speedy close" !votes. There is flat-out no room for improvement for these lists because nobody can show how they achieve notability as independent articles. So whether we wait 2 days or 2 months, the lists are not going to get any better and that is the only reason people wait before renominations anyway. Some may argue that religion has something to do with science (a personal style, a worldly outlook), as was put in the other AfDs, but never was this argument taken to the next level and applied directly to Nobel Prize laureates. There is a reason very few Nobel laureates mention their religion in their Nobel autobiographies, and indeed, when a massive study was conducted to note the religious (or lack thereof, atheism) background of the laureates, numerous were hesistant to even mention their religious background (or lack thereof) and deemed it fitfully irrelevant. This is WP:OCAT#Non-notable in list format. Bulldog123 14:06, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy Close Just crap. KP Botany 14:11, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete All per nom., sgeureka, and Bulldog123.--JayJasper 14:24, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy Close. What is the time period between nominations typically considered reasonable? I'm not sure what it is, but I am certain that a 2-day period between an AfD closing and a new nomination is unreasonable. I appreciate that all of these have been nominated together this time, but please wait a while before nominating again. Nick Graves 14:45, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I mentioned above, this nom includes all of the related lists. It is a completely different nomination. --Hemlock Martinis 18:10, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The nomination includes List of atheist Nobel laureates, which just survived deletion a couple days ago. There is no argument being made here for deletion that wasn't made in the recent deletion attempt. It's too soon to renominate List of atheist Nobel laureates, whether or not it is bundled with nominations for other articles. Nick Graves 18:52, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nope. Many of the Keeps in the Atheist AfD were made on the basis of not deleting that list until all of these lists could be deleted. Rather than wait around a month to get that nomination made, I went ahead and did it now. --Hemlock Martinis 19:29, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete on the grounds that religion is not an issue or qualifier in the awarding of the prize, and lists such as these exist to showcase how superior individuals of one religion or another (or none at all) are based on how many recipients are in the list. change to Close. While consensus does change, another nomination so soon after the last is pure folly and an attempt to circumvent the result of the 15th. VanTucky (talk) 16:16, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, it's not. This is to remove concerns of bias by deleting all of these equally bad articles. --Hemlock Martinis 20:30, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete All. While I really don't care for the "play until you win!" mentality of re-nominating articles for which you are dissatisfied with the first outcome, I think that all of these really do need to go. These are unencyclopedic and the inclusion critera if murky at best, leading to WP:OR problems. Trusilver 17:14, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete All per nom. Since last AFD closed as no consensus, I see no problem with the renomination. DCEdwards1966 18:13, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy Keep Nom these separately. Jtrainor 20:08, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, because when we do that, people claim POV and bias and all sorts of unfun stuff. They're all equally bad and of the same topic. A bundle nom is perfectly appropriate here. --Hemlock Martinis 20:28, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't matter what people claim. Policy is what matters. Jtrainor 20:36, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
And what policy would that be? These lists are original research. These lists consist of an unimportant intersection between two characteristics. These lists are poorly sourced or sourceless. These lists do not say why any of these people's religion is important as related to their field of study, and therefore do not even assert the purpose the lists. What policy, pray tell, are you speaking of? --Hemlock Martinis 21:22, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete All - per nom. Nil Einne 21:15, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all - please; there is not purpose for this type of information. --Storm Rider (talk) 00:33, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete All per Hemlock Martinis. User:Argyriou (talk) 00:58, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy Close - while I'm technically against any list being articles (per a few mos policies), I would have to say that a quick renomination after a decision to keep is abuse of the process. We don't allow deleted articles to be re-created immediately (see speedy templates), so let's not allow a kept article to instantaneously nominated again, it's an abuse of the process meant at gathering a different audience. --danielfolsom 02:06, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • So...you want to delete the articles, but not right now? Are we waiting for them to ripen? If something should be deleted, delete it! I'm tired of saying over and over again that this is a different nomination. The previous AfD was No Consensus because many of the Keeps said that we shouldn't just delete the atheist one and allow the others to remain. And the other lists are actually worse than that one! So instead of following some arbitrary practice, I went ahead and nominated all of these for deletion. Had this debate been titled "List of Christian Nobel laureates", would you have still voted to keep? Or was it just because I unfortunately chose the same name as a recent AfD? --Hemlock Martinis 02:35, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete All. I was the nominator of this article (the atheist article, alone) for its last AfD. In that AfD (which you can read above) almost all of the votes to Keep said, "either this article should stay, or they all should be deleted". In other words, the admin who closed it correctly identified that there was no consensus as to keeping or deleting the atheist article specifically. However, there was a very strong consensus to delete all of the articles, which was not possible under the terms of the previous AfD. Now, we have an AfD where precisely that has been proposed, and all of the same arguments against policy are still valid. Delete. Chubbles 03:30, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all - totally non-encyclopedic lists that link two unrelated characteristics of the men and women included. No arguments are advanced in any of the articles to suggest that there is a causal (or indeed any) relationship between the two characteristics. Bigdaddy1981 04:54, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all per the above, and please stop trying to raise procedural concerns since Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. >Radiant< 09:33, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment For perhaps the one-millionth time, the list of Jewish Nobel laureates is not a list of individuals according to their religion; it is a list of Jews, which Wikipedia defines in its article on Jews as "members of the Jewish people, an ethnic group originating in the Israelites of the ancient Middle East and others who converted to Judaism throughout the millennia." You can be a "native born" member of this group by virtue of having had one or two ethnically Jewish parents, or you can be a "naturalized" member by virtue of formal conversion to Judaism. This is how the world has defined the Jews for most of the last three millennia. As to whether the intersection of the two categories "Jews" and "Nobel laureates" is "irrelevant," it should be noted that when one cross-correlates two variables and finds a correlation spike that is even 100% larger than expected, that point of intersection is considered statistically very significant. In this case, the correlation spike is 10,000% larger than expected. While correlation doesn't always imply causality, for such large deviations, it virtually always does. Jinfo 12:48, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment "correlation doesn't always imply causality, for such large deviations, it virtually always does" - how about a list of male Nobel prize winners? Would you be similarly willing to argue that this correlation is causal? Or how about -as mentioned below - Caucasian prize winners? Bigdaddy1981 17:51, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Of course they imply causal linkage; do you actually think that these correlations are purely random? With that said, they do not necessarily call for a sexist or racist explanation, which is what I think you are attempting to tar me with. Nor do they imply that Wikipedia needs to have articles on any of these subjects. The only point that I was trying to address in my original Comment was the claim repeatedly made in the comments above that this intersection of categories is “trivial,“ “coincidental,” or “irrelevant,” which I believe to be erroneous in the case of Jewish Nobel laureates. To the extent that we have a scientific definition of “significance,” the intersection of “Jews” and “Nobel laureates” is highly significant, as are the two examples you cited above. They are all the product of complex historical, cultural, societal, and possibly biological causes, none of which are at all well understood at present. Jinfo 21:46, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Then create an article on the "historical, cultural, societal, and possibly biological" linkage between ethnicity and Nobel prizewinning. Bigdaddy1981 00:16, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Again, what are the sources for your claims above? I mean, obviously (non-)religion and ethnicity are not random causes for the way you live your life. Growing up as a fat kid or a pimply teenager, liking SciFi shows, growing up with a single parent, being the pet of the family (I think you get the point) aren't random either, still quite obviously make poor category crossovers. But to make wikipedia better, we need sources and non-OR ideas before we can back them up with examples. What you're saying is keep the examples and wait for non-OR ideas that may be added to WP later. Wrong approach for wikipedia. Until we have a well-sourced wiki article saying that there is a non-trivial, non-coincidental, relevant causal link between religion/ethnicity/whatever and being a Nobel laureate, there simply is no such link without going into WP:OR. – sgeureka t•c 22:42, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • (1) Source? (2) Apart from my standpoint that religion is not directly linked to becoming/being a Noble Prize winner, ethnicity isn't either until there is a well sourced wiki article about the Influence of ethnicity on Nobel laureates. – sgeureka t•c 13:56, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment Okay, so if we removed the Jews and nominated all the other religions for deletion, would that then be satisfactory? The Jewish list was the one which I had considered might have some legitimate body of scholarship on this intersection. As for the others, I really can't see any current rationale for why this intersection is significant. Chubbles 14:24, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Per Sgeureka, all you have to do is replace ethnicity with the word religion in the following sentence: "Nobel laureate X is listed here because his religion Y significantly contributed to his Nobel Prize, see source Z" (see below). Either way it ends up being a vio of WP:SYNTH. We've heard this ethnicity argument time and time again and it doesn't matter either which way. And as mentioned in the previous AfD, a List of Caucasian Nobel Prize laureates won't work despite a 1000% (maybe more?) larger than expected ratio. There's also scholarship on the severe lack of women Nobel Prize laureates, but how on earth anyone can write an article on Women and a specific prize is beyond me. You might as well write one for women and every prize. Sex and ethnicity don't work. Neither does sexual preference for that matter, and there just so happen to be a lot of gay Nobel Prize laureates. Bulldog123 16:28, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Then I suggest that you also consider deletion of Nobel laureates by country. Many of these “countries” are also ethnicities. Nobel prizes are supposed to be awarded without regard to nationality. What is the significance of a person’s country of birth in this connection? A significant fraction of Nobel laureates achieved what they did only by virtue of leaving (in some cases fleeing) their country of birth. (Note all of the starred names.) Jinfo 17:07, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Actually I agree. That article should be nominated because it is actually pretty misleading and subject to different interpretations as to who belongs to what nation. On the other hand, the statement about those "countries" being shown off as ethnicities isn't really true. There is no United Kingdom ethnicity (as other amalgamated nations), and the list pays no attention to whether the person actually belongs to the ethnicity of the country. But yes, it should be deleted for a lot of other reasons. if a List of German Nobel laureates existed that listed everyone with half-German ethnicity, it would be equally worthy of deletion. Bulldog123 17:42, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • I partly agree with that, with a minor reason for opposition because people are defined by date of birth and death, nationality, and best-known occupation (see any surname page). What about a sortable table on the main list? – sgeureka t•c 18:19, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Agree - for instance, John Harsanyi is included as American and Hungarian and John Polanyi as Canadian, Hungarian and German. It seems each country is allocated the maximum possible number of laureates no matter if they are double (or triple) counted -- absurd. Bigdaddy1981 20:02, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - As the closing admin for the prior AfD, I don't believe a procedural speedy close is warranted, for two reasons. Firstly, the prior AfD ended as a No consensus, which defaults to Keep, but (unlike a straight Keep) does not prejudice re-nomination. Secondly, this is a bundle nom for a number of pages, so the situation is not the same as the previous AfD. As such, this AfD should remain open for its full term. WaltonOne 16:14, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete -- I consider this a completely different AfC submission. And, as previously noted, the two things have nothing to do with one another. Cap'n Walker 21:29, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all per WP:NOT#DIR. Maybe the religious beliefs of certain people who happened to be Nobel laureates were notable, but there is no actual connection between "religious beliefs" and "Nobel laureate". ugen64 06:27, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete all - 1. Walton closed List of atheist Nobel laureates AfD#1 and if he does not want to speedy delete this AfD (see his post above), that pretty much resolves the speedy delete issue. 2. The trouble I have with these list is that the WP:N does not relate to their being atheist, Christian, Hindu, Humanist, Jewish, Muslim, etc. The WP:N goes to their being Nobel laureates and we already have such a list. A list of Nobel laureates whose receipt of the Nobel Prize was based in part on their being atheist, Christian, Hindu, Humanist, Jewish, Muslim, etc as confirmed by WP:RS may be a viable list. However, these two-criterion lists seem to piggyback on the notability of one of the criteria (Nobel Prize) as a pretext to form a list composted of the second criteria (atheist, Christian, Hindu, Humanist, Jewish, Muslim, etc.) where (i) the second criteria lacks a sufficient WP:RS relevance connection to the first criteria and (ii) the second criteria lacks sufficient WP:RS material on which to base a list membership criteria on its own merits. -- Jreferee (Talk) 19:58, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment- from what i've read thus far it seems there are fair arguments for deleting these articles. however it seems that it might also follow under the same arguments that these articles also be deleted- Female Nobel Prize laureates, List of Oldest Living Nobel Laureates, and Nobel Prize laureates by secondary school affiliation.thoughts? Some thing 01:07, 22 July 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.
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