Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Indeterminacy problem Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Indeterminacy_problem

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 No Consensus to delete. Eluchil404 (talk) 04:36, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Indeterminacy problem (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Sounds like the personal opinion of the writer. The first few Google hits for "Indeterminacy problem" either are copies of this article or are about something else entirely. While I agree with most of the conclusions, is this "problem" notable? Does anyone really use the phrase "indeterminacy problem" to refer to this? Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 11:36, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions. — Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 11:41, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. — Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 11:41, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• The same thing is discussed in Philosophy of science#Indeterminacy of theory under empirical testing If this is not a generally accepted name for the topic, redirect it to indeterminacy. Juzhong (talk) 12:04, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Did you try google scholar? Juzhong (talk) 12:06, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete This is a textbook example of WP:OR. Ruslik (talk) 12:07, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually, it's a textbook example of editors at AFD not doing the searches for sources that actually help AFD, and that have been the expected behaviour of editors since at least 2003. And, to add to the irony, this is a subject that is discussed in textbooks. I've just found it discussed, over 3 pages, in ISBN 9780847691227, for example. (The text, sans illustrations, is even available as a sample chapter of the book, on the publisher's WWW site.) The more usual name that it is discussed under is "underdetermination" (of theory by evidence), after Helen Longino. It's distinct from the Duhem–Quine thesis, too, since it doesn't deal in auxiliary assumptions. Uncle G (talk) 15:39, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  I did not claim that sources do not exist. However the article, as it stands now, is a synthesis of the published material and therefore is original research—an assay, as Headbomb noted below. Ruslik (talk) 18:05, 1 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete Looks an awful lot like this doesn't it? What it's doing in a website about Swedish plumbing fixtures is something that we don't need to make a theory for, but this is a leftover from Wikipedia's early days, when sourcing was considered optional. If sources can be added, it's worth reconsidering, otherwise, redirect per above. Mandsford (talk) 15:28, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's a (non-GFDL-compliant) copy of Wikipedia, not the other way around. You can tell by the "[EDIT]"s that are interspersed through the text. At least you looked somewhere for sources, though. Try following the suggestion by Juzhong made above, now. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 15:39, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• This is a textbook example of an article on a perfectly viable subject that is in need of cleanup, because the original editor didn't use sources even though plenty of sources exist. Fixing this is a matter of taking those sources in hand and using ordinary editing tools to modify the article content (and possibly title). No administrator tools are required. Keep. Uncle G (talk) 15:39, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree all the way. (You might also want to move your "keep" to the beginning of your comment so it's easier to distinguish.)  LinguistAtLarge  19:19, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Took a glance at http://scholar.google.it/scholar?q=%22Indeterminacy+problem%22, most of them seem to be about statistics, not philosophy of science. That's not the same concept as the one this article is about. -- Army1987 – Deeds, not words. 16:02, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Now try the name that I already told you, only a few lines further up this very page, was the name commonly used in the literature, by Longino et al.. And try reading the source already cited. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 16:27, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• The article on Underdetermination notes that it is also called "indeterminacy of data to theory", and appears to be about much the same issue. See also Occam's razor#Science and the scientific method. Not sure if there's any content in this article worth keeping given what's already in some of the other articles, but the issue is a well-known topic in the philosophy of science. (That's effectively a weak vote for merging and redirecting.) Djr32 (talk) 16:53, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge as a subsection of Occam's Razor (or equivalent) or do a complete rewrite. The problem with this article is that it's an essay more than anything else. Contacting WP:Philosophy and WP:Science is in order methinks.Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 18:05, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. An Amazon search for "Indeterminacy Problem" (with quotes) turns up 316 books [1].  LinguistAtLarge  19:11, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also restored the lead sentence that was lost several edits ago.  LinguistAtLarge  19:19, 30 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think your quotes made any difference. Juzhong (talk) 00:28, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• OK seriously redirect to indeterminacy. I looked through google scholar hits, and it seems anything you wrote about the "interdeterminacy problem" would be redundant with other discussions of indeterminacy which can be found from that page. I don't care if the content is merged somewhere else but the title needs to redirect there. Juzhong (talk) 00:28, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect as per Juzhong. As a search term, "Indeterminacy problem" can refer to several of the concepts listed on the Indeterminacy disambiguation page. In the sense used in this article, "Underdetermination" appears more common. As far as can be discerned, the content is OR, and in any case a collection of totally unsourced opinions and arguments that require attribution if they are to be retained, so merging with Underdetermination is not doable. 88.235.147.36 (talk) 20:17, 1 January 2009 (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.