Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unreflective copying bias

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. Since even after two relistings we have only the opinions of the nominator and one other user, I'm going to make this a WP:SOFTDELETE. No prejudice against a speedy renomination should the article be restored on request. Deor (talk) 11:54, 19 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Unreflective copying bias[edit]

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This article likely fails notability tests, despite the topic getting a very minor run in a couple of online news sources. There are also conflict of interest issues here. Cheers Andrew (talk) 11:49, 23 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 12:26, 23 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, —Tom Morris (talk) 12:51, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Selective merge to List of cognitive biases. I was only able to find the one primary reference for this bias, the paper referenced in the article. Of the secondary references in the article, the Royal Society article is not independent and the other two are uncritical, simply summarizing the main results of the paper. Given that this work hasn't been subject to careful review by reliable secondary sources, the topic fails notability thresholds per WP:GNG. Given that the experiment results haven't been reproduced elsewhere, verifiability comes into question as well. But the assertion that this bias exists and has been subject to the paper peer review is verifiable, so it seems worth a mention in List of cognitive biases with refs verifying. Basically, it is WP:TOOSOON for this topic to develop the multiple in-depth reliable sources needed to write an unbiased article. That the article was likely written by one of the authors of the paper also raises concerns about neutrality. Without proper independent RS, I don't think we can make the article neutral. --Mark viking (talk) 17:09, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Mark viking. Thanks for giving this your attention. Predictably, I agree with pretty much everything you have said. The only point I would make is that I think merging into List of cognitive biases would still be giving this very preliminary research too much coverage. I would argue that to include it in the list (either as a cognitive bias or a social bias) is to imply that it is established as a 'real and distinguishable thing', which I don't think we can say at this stage. Yes, the paper has got through peer review, but this does not mean it is established a scientific fact. As you are probably well aware, the peer review process is a limited control and depending on the journal and reviewers a paper may get through on methodological rather than theoretical grounds. Really, the path toward scientific consensus starts at peer review, rather than ends at it.

In the end and I am pretty sure that this research isn't going to get traction. This is basically because their grandiose novel claim (i.e. that "networks do not propagate the analytic reasoning style required to independently arrive at correct answers") isn't justified by the data they have and is contradicted by other more established theory and data.^[1]^[2] But this is wp:nor from me. I think your points, coupled with my healthy skepticism as to what we can expect from peer review, is enough justification to leave Unreflective copying bias out of Wikipedia for the meantime. Cheers Andrew (talk) 01:43, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your thoughtful response and you do make a good point. If the basic assertion of this paper, as would be claimed in List of cognitive biases, is likely to be controversial, then a single primary reference for verification isn't good enough. WP:PSTS indicates that primary references are OK for uncontroversial facts, but contentious matter requires independent secondary or tertiary sources. I've changed my recommendation to delete. --Mark viking (talk) 03:25, 1 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

References[edit]

^ Turner, J. C. (1991). Social influence. Thomson Brooks/Cole Publishing Co.
^ Smyth, L., Mavor, K. I., Platow, M. J., Grace, D. M., & Reynolds, K. J. (2013). Discipline social identification, study norms and learning approach in university students. Educational Psychology, (ahead-of-print), 1-21.

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 08:24, 9 October 2014 (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.

[1] Turner, J. C. (1991). Social influence. Thomson Brooks/Cole Publishing Co.

[2] Smyth, L., Mavor, K. I., Platow, M. J., Grace, D. M., & Reynolds, K. J. (2013). Discipline social identification, study norms and learning approach in university students. Educational Psychology, (ahead-of-print), 1-21.

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