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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 no consensus. What I said in the closure of the first AfD still applies, but this time the community's opinion about this article borders on a "keep" consensus, with those who consider it original research by synthesis clearly in the minority.  Sandstein  12:08, 28 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Biology and political orientation

[edit]
AfDs for this article:
Biology and political orientation (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • Stats)
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There is no evidence for notability, the page is essentially a synthesis of sources that don't even pass WP:MEDRS. CartoonDiablo (talk) 19:49, 8 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:24, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:25, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 13:25, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as synthesis. This article pulls together unrelated studies and creates a new topic. If any of the studies have any notability, which is doubtful, then they can be put into their own article. We put together for example the view that there is a liberal gene and that liberal and conservative brain structures differ. If this were a field of study worthy of an article then we should be able to find a secondary source that writes about both theories. Much of the article is about the differences between liberal and conservative psychology, which is irrelevant unless the sources say that the psychological differences have a biological difference. TFD (talk) 21:47, 14 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some of this content is worth saving, but it should be merged into a new section in Genopolitics rather than as its own article. This is a major topic of concern in political science, but it doesn't yet merit its own article. Thosjleep (talk) 20:48, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: This is not a new topic. Research applying concepts and techniques from the life sciences to political science dates back to the 1960s.[1][2] Although, it is only in the last decade or so that this approach has gained wider acceptance and prominence within political science, as techniques from behavioral genetics and neuroscience have begun to be applied specifically to questions in political science. For introductory style articles, see [3][4]. Some of the material in this article is original synthesis e.g. the focus on Kanazawa's work (also the idea that there is a "liberal gene" is a misrepresentation that has been called out in the literature), but collecting together neuroscientific and genetic approaches to political science is definitely not an original synthesis, e.g. [5][6]. Plenty of sources exist to write a general article on the intersection of biology and political science. --92.4.165.211 (talk) 21:49, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep not new, and notable as noted from such reliable sources as the NY Times. Bearian (talk) 20:39, 17 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: I've just gone through the article and removed a lot of material that doesn't belong, rearranged some things and deleted some duplicated material. The history section under Politics and the life sciences from the Biopolitics article should also be merged in some form across to this article, although in its current form it's a bit OR-y and not NPOV. --92.4.165.211 (talk) 17:52, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and redirect to Biopolitics It came out in the last afd, which wasn't that long ago, that this rather shoddy article duplicates the scope of another article about the same thing, Biopolitics, but it was too late in the afd to make a consensus for merging. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 15:58, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 13:29, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The claim of the nomination that the topic is not notable is incorrect. For example, here's a book with much the same title and topic. The research is described as cutting edge and so should be treated with caution but we ought to have a place to cover this developing field. Warden (talk) 18:18, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • It is not the same topic. The book is about how political issues can be resolved by looking at individual behavior as biologically determined. For example, infant abandonment is a political issue, because society must decide what to do with the child and the parents, but the causes of child abandonment can be understood through understanding human behaviour as developed through biological evolution. It says nothing about how biology could influence political orientation. TFD (talk) 20:00, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Erm, no. You are very confused. The material covered in that particular book is exactly what this article is about, the application of biological concepts and techniques to help explain political ideology and behavior. The separation of that book into two main sections titled Genes, Evolution and Politics and The Brain and Political Behavior should be rather telling even if you were to look no deeper than that. For instance, the chapter by Hannagan is a reasonably thorough review of the behavioral genetics side of things even if it is a little too dismissive of some of the criticism this research has had. --92.4.165.211 (talk) 19:36, 21 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • By the way, the title of the article is something of a red herring. Research in this area does not examine just political orientation, that would be completely naive. --92.4.165.211 (talk) 20:22, 21 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Are we looking at the same article? I see several studies specifically looking at the relationship between biology (maybe more like neuroscience) and political orientation, and this remains a popular, if controversial, area of study. Biopolitics is a bit of a mess, so I don't like the idea of merging there. --BDD (talk) 20:06, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Are you trolling? See Biology and political orientation#References. I see references number 2-8, 10-11, 16-18, and 20 that are directly relevant (not to discount the utility of the others). But surely you saw these before. Do you think all of these references are somehow illegitimate, and you're asking me for another one? --BDD (talk) 15:18, 21 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I'm not sure how they tally "name one source" with the fact that six studies are actually referenced in the article itself (plus a few other scholarly articles on this subject), or the links I gave to several scholarly secondary sources above. --92.4.165.211 (talk) 20:04, 21 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. A curious topic but there seem to be some sources. Whether one believes it is beside the point. Xxanthippe (talk) 07:09, 21 September 2012 (UTC).[reply]
  • Delete as synthesis ----Snowded TALK 05:47, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Out of interest, why specifically do you believe this to be synthesis given the variety of scholarly sources covering this topic linked above?
      • Somit, Albert; Peterson, Steven A. (July 1998). "Biopolitics after Three Decades - A Balance Sheet". British Journal of Political Science. 28 (3): 559–571.
      • Robert H. Blank; Jr, Samuel M. Hines (2001). Biology and Political Science. Routledge Studies in Science, Technology, and Society, Volume 4. London [u.a.]: Routledge. ISBN 9780415204361.
      • Fowler, J. H.; Schreiber, D. (7 November 2008). "Biology, Politics, and the Emerging Science of Human Nature" (PDF). Science. 322 (5903): 912–914. doi:10.1126/science.1158188.
      • Alford, John R.; Hibbing, John R. (1 June 2008). "The New Empirical Biopolitics". Annual Review of Political Science. 11 (1): 183–203. doi:10.1146/annurev.polisci.11.060806.161216.
      • Steven A. Peterson; Albert Somit (eds.). Biology and Politics: The Cutting Edge. Research in Biopolitics, Volume 9. Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing. ISBN 9780857245793.
      • McDermott, Rose (2011). Peter K. Hatemi; Rose McDermott (eds.). Man is by Nature a Political Animal: Evolution, Biology, and Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226319117.
All of these are secondary academic sources discussing this specific topic, the influence of biology on political ideology/attitudes and behavior. --92.4.165.211 (talk) 15:56, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A word on sources: This is a medical article meaning it has to abide by WP:MEDRS. Yes this article has a reference section but not one single reference passes MEDRS. If you removed every citation that fails MEDRS there wouldn't be an article. CartoonDiablo (talk) 02:09, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agree it needs deleting, but that standard does not apply unless someone is likely to come to the article seeking medical advise which they are not. Pleased to see you getting the synthesis point by the way. ----Snowded TALK 05:47, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's more psychology than medicine. (Nor is it psychiatry—no one is taking pills to change political orientation.) As Snowded says, it's difficult to imagine this article being used for medical advice. Could you elaborate on how these references fail MEDRS? --BDD (talk) 15:09, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well, more behavioral genetics, behavioral neuroscience, psychophysiology and evolutionary psychology as it currently stands (although I have the impression that some research may have looked at psychopharmacology in the past). Guidance on medical sources is not relevant here, other than in a good sense sort of way e.g. using the popular press as sources. --92.4.165.211 (talk) 16:56, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a medical article (regarding the description or treatment of a medical condition). This is pure and applied science. MEDRS does not apply. - Stillwaterising (talk) 22:43, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep for the same reason I said a few months ago when this went to AFD already. Ample sources have been found and are in the article. I noticed that recently an IP address removed a large chunk of the article, despite those sections being sourced. [8] I see nothing wrong with the previous version of the article. Anyway, Wikipedia:MEDRS doesn't apply, since if you read the opening paragraph on that page, it says clearly that some people use Wikipedia for health information, and thus you have to be careful. No one is using information in this article to know what medicines or practices to use, so its not relevant. Dream Focus 13:11, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Note the edit summaries, whether that material was sourced or not was irrelevant. Notionally, this article covers biology and politics, not biology, politics and anything else you can find about the psychology of liberals and conservatives. Another article, political psychology, would be the place, if any, for that. --92.4.165.211 (talk) 15:07, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No you are mistaken, WP:MEDRS lead paragraph says as an introduction: " it is vital that the biomedical information in articles be based on reliable, third-party, published sources and accurately reflect current medical knowledge." Are you denying that Physiology and Genetics are fields of Biomedical research? Are you denying that Medical research is covered by MEDRS? I am aware it is difficult to read policies and guidelines beyond the first line, but it helps. IRWolfie- (talk) 15:56, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That's out of context. The entire thing reads Wikipedia's articles, while not intended to provide medical advice, are nonetheless an important and widely used source of health information.[1] Therefore, it is vital that the biomedical information in articles be based on reliable, third-party, published sources and accurately reflect current medical knowledge. It explains the reasons why in the first sentence, and the second sentence begins with "therefore" just in case you didn't connect the it with the first sentence. Dream Focus 19:21, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Err, exactly, because wikipedia is a widely used source of health information it is vital that biomedical information in articles be based on reliable sources. That is exactly what I said, and exactly what is covered by MEDRS. It's about medical related studies, of course MEDRS applies. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:34, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We're discussing this on the talk page. Talk:Biology_and_political_orientation#MEDRS There is absolutely no possible way anyone would base any medical decision of theirs on what they read here, so it does not apply. That guideline is to keep people from getting bad advice that might harm them. There are no pills or surgery to alter your genes currently available, so its not relevant. Dream Focus 07:45, 26 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak keep. The sources found by 92.4.165.211 and listed above show that the article can be improved substantially. Currently it seems heavily sourced from a couple of recent studies. This isn't enough however for me to !vote delete because the material should probably be included in the article is some form, perhaps with less emphasis, in any case. We do want science-related articles to be up-to-date. Tijfo098 (talk) 14:56, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If you look closely you will see that the papers selected are those primary papers that happened to be picked up by newspapers and not scientists. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:01, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
They are subfields of biomedical research, also, it's not the journals are at issue, it's that the article relies on primary papers which have been selected based on what appeared in newspapers. There is no sign that this is a legitimate topic with legitimate academic secondary sourcing. Instead it has been constructed from newspaper sources and associated articles, and then linked together in a synthesis. As shown below, editors voting keep have a hard time distinguishing this article from other related articles like Biology and politics science, biopolitics and Genopolitics. Please list how you think this topic is distinct from each of these. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:46, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No. You are simply incorrect about them being subfields of biomedical research. An intersection does not imply that one topic is a subset of another, what is the medical context here? Behavioral sciences are not a subfield of biomedicine. As someone pointed out, thankfully as I was looking for it and couldn't find it, the relevant guidance is WP:SCIRS. My argument during this AfD has only ever been that there should be an article on the relevance of biology to political science for which there are an abundance of reliable secondary sources, many linked to in this AfD. Biopolitics contained a brief, very general overview of the topic, but isn't the proper place for such an article, for reasons pointed out above, and Genopolitics focuses only on the behavioral genetic research and cannot provide a place for a general overview of the various streams of research in this area. As noted below, I would have merged the history section from Biopolitics to this article and then moved the page to a more appropriate title, either "Biology and politics" or "Biology and political science". Tijfo098 took a different view and created a new article during this AfD, Biology and political science, out of the material from Biopolitics. Now that Biology and political science has been created I do not see any reason for Biology and political orientation to exist and the content should be merged in some form across to the former, with much reduced focus on individual studies and an expansion of context, critical and otherwise. As to whether the current presentation in Biology and political orientation is an original synthesis lacking secondary sources, the studies presented there, Kanai et al. (2011), Amodio et al. (2007), Zamboni et al. (2009), Knutson et al. (2006), Alford, Funk and Hibbing (2005) and Hatemi et al. (2011), can all be covered by secondary sources that have been linked to, either in this or the last AfD. I really recommend you look at and read the sources that have been linked to in this AfD and the last. Start with the introductions in Biology and Politics: The Cutting Edge. and Man is by Nature a Political Animal: Evolution, Biology, and Politics., and then look at the chapters reviewing the different streams of research i.e. the ones by Hannagan, Schreiber, Smith, etc and then look at some of the journal articles that have been linked. The evolutionary psych. stuff that's there I'm not too sure about, but evolutionary psych. is definitely covered in some form alongside genetics, neuroscience and physiology and other approaches in reliable sources such as, Man is by Nature a Political Animal: Evolution, Biology, and Politics., and it is definitely discussed in the literature. --92.4.165.211 (talk) 23:50, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Medical research lists Genetics as a field of medical research. The book Man is by Nature a Political Animal: Evolution, Biology, and Politics and citations there in are relevant for Biology and political science as the title of the book indicates. This article is based on what the newspapers say about the primary sources, and the primary sources themselves. IRWolfie- (talk) 11:11, 28 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep – because the topic absolutely passes WP:GNG. Examples include, but are certainly not limited to:
Along with the sources provided above by IP User:92.4.165.211:
—Afterward, perhaps editors can discuss the potential of a merge to Biopolitics. Northamerica1000(talk) 16:38, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No, that merger is a bad idea. Was discussed above. Tijfo098 (talk) 19:28, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You might have mentioned that you'd started another article, Biology and political science, on this. I agree that the article on this subject should be called Biology and political science, but judging by the fact that you link back to this article it seems you intend it as a fork of some sort? --92.4.165.211 (talk) 20:14, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I simply split biopolitcs in two because we don't normally have a giant disambiguation and an article on just one of the meanings on the same Wikipedia page. There is a long paper just about the conflicting usages of term "biopolitcs" and Lemke's book is also expounding on the various meanings at length, so the term page even meets GNG. The "Biology and political science" field of study has a few books about it that I could easily find, so it clearly passes GNG. The article is in bad shape though. The contents (which I merely moved) was apparently written by a new (and WP:SPA insofar) editor, User:Raven820. I actually pruned some of the less encyclopedic part of his contribution when I did the split. Tijfo098 (talk) 08:32, 26 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I would have just merged the material from Biopolitics to a history section in this article while keeping in mind that the article needed to be renamed to something like Biology and political science, as creating yet another article in this area during an AfD may well cause some confusion. Indeed the 21:42, 25 September comment below would seem symptomatic of that, as the argument has never been that there should be an article specifically on biology and political orientation alongside a separate article on the subfield of political science, at least not on my part. I think quite a bit of the content in this area was written by throwaway accounts e.g. Ronaldfwhite and Biosocstudent. The contributions from both of these lack NPOV to some extent and I know/guess that both had COIs in relation to some of their edits. --92.4.165.211 (talk) 15:27, 26 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think that you are providing sources for Biopolitics and Biology and political science rather defeats the point that this is a distinct topic. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:42, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Basically "Biology and political orientation" is one of the main topics of research in "Biology and political science". A merge there wouldn't be outlandish. Tijfo098 (talk) 08:38, 26 September 2012 (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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