Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bernard d'Abrera

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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 keep. The sources presented by Sumbuddi seem to have turned the discussion from no consensus to keep. Pax:Vobiscum (talk) 10:09, 10 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Bernard d'Abrera[edit]

AfDs for this article:
Bernard d'Abrera (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log) • Afd statistics
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Bernard d’Abrera is an academic who does not passes the notability criteria of for academics. The criteria in WP:PROF are listed as follows:

  1. The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources.
    Pretty much the only place that lists him is google scholar, based on the website getcited.org. Most of his books are not well cited (based on google, on average 1.8 cites per year per publication, based on the first 18 hits of work by him), which is surprising as they are overview works of specific regions. Noteworthy, this latter work receives less citations than his earlier work. In my opinion, he does not have made a significant impact in the field.
  2. The person has received a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level.
    None.
  3. The person is or has been an elected member of a highly selective and prestigious scholarly society or association (e.g. a National Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society) or a Fellow of a major scholarly society for which that is a highly selective honor (e.g. the IEEE)
    Nope.
  4. The person's academic work has made a significant impact in the area of higher education, affecting a substantial number of academic institutions.
    Nope.
  5. The person holds or has held a named chair appointment or "Distinguished Professor" appointment at a major institution of higher education and research.''
    Nope.
  6. The person has held a major highest-level elected or appointed academic post at a major academic institution or major academic society.
    Nope.
  7. The person has made substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity.
    His major claim to fame, besides his self-published biographies about butterflies, is his involvement in the creationist movement. However, he is not one of the highly visible individuals in that movement. Most of his contribution is better covered under the various creationist articles.
  8. The person is or has been an editor-in-chief of a major well-established journal in their subject area.
    Nope.
  9. The person is in a field of literature (e.g writer or poet) or the fine arts (e.g. musician, composer, artist), and meets the standards for notability in that art, such as WP:CREATIVE or WP:MUSIC.
    N/A

He is currently not associated with a university or research institute. He never obtained a PhD, and most of his work is self-published. Unless someone can show me that I am substantially wrong about the fame in creationist circles (I think I know all the major players), I think he is not notable and I urge deletion of this article. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 17:24, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've not looked closely Kim, but it seems to pass WP:GNG pretty easily. He doesn't need to also pass WP:PROF. Are you claiming the sources in the article don't meet WP:GNG? Hobit (talk) 17:36, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ok, lets examine the sources listed:
    1. Macleay Museum News, edited by Julian Holland, No. 8, October 1996.
      Wonderful, he visited a museum. I do have those sources for myself, and they do not establish much beyond working in the field.
    2. "Official Website for Hill House Publishers". Hill House Publishers. http://www.hillhouse-publishers.com/. Retrieved 2007-11-26.
      His own publishing house. Not admissible for WP:GNG.
    3. Butterfly blast, Carl Wieland, Creation 25(3):16–19 June 2003.
      Book review of fellow creationist. A dead link and unavailable resource. Main source for much of the article.
    4. What Have Butterflies Got to Do with Darwin?, William A. Dembski, Review of Bernard d'Abrera, The Concise Atlas of Butterflies of the World (London: Hill House, 2001), 353 pages., from "Metanexus: The Online Forum on Religion and Science <http://www.metanexus.net>", 2001, retrieved August 18, 2007.
      Book review of fellow creationist.
    5. Society Fellows, International Society for Complexity, Information and Design official website.
      Membership of a creationist organisation. Being a member of a comparable evolution societies never ever is enough by itself to be notable.
    6. Concise Atlas of the Butterflies of the World, Bernard d'Abrera, Hill House Publishers, Melb.& Lond., 2001, ISBN 978-0-947352-37-0.
      His own work. Not admissible for WP:GNG.
    7. Explore Evolution Textbook and Website, Staff, Discovery Institute, June 1, 2007, from Discovery Institute official website, Retrieved on 2007-08-03.
      Link sourcing that his own publishing house publishes their stuff. Not admissible for WP:GNG.
    8. About the Authors, Explore Evolution official website
      Link sourcing that his own publishing house publishes their stuff. Not admissible for WP:GNG.
So, do two book reviews indicative notability? If so, then I am far more notable than he is. My work has been reviewed in major news papers, including The Times of London, The Economist and Nature among others. Anyway, you get the point. Outside of creatinist circles, he is not very notable. Within those circles, he has some notability, but I do not think that notability rises to the inclusion level generally used at wikipedia. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 18:29, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
For fun, I have updated my userpage showing my own 'notability' (cough cough).... ;-) -- Kim van der Linde at venus 00:20, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think you should look closely at the sources. Most of them have varying degrees of affiliation with d'Abrera. I would suggest that none of them are truly "independent" per WP:GNG. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 17:42, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Not notable.--Grahame (talk) 00:30, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please explain that in English. Risker (talk) 03:13, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, I can't do much better than that. You might like to look at WP:Prof and follow these pages for a while to learn the technical jargon. Xxanthippe (talk) 06:17, 23 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]
I asked my question *after* re-reading WP:PROF. If you cannot explain your reasoning in a way that a well-informed Wikipedian can understand, then your reasoning is not clear. Explain what process you used to come up with the numbers, please, and why you're putting so much weight on the h-index, which WP:PROF clearly indicates is to be used with caution. Risker (talk) 06:33, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Could you please give me the approximate cuttoff values that you are using for #citations and H-index to see if C1 is satisfied? I think a mere 2 citations per year per book is rather poor, especially considering that these are overview works.-- Kim van der Linde at venus 03:19, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Looking back at past decisions on these academic AfD pages I find that to clearly satisfy WP:Prof#C1 500-1000 citations in the scientific literature have usually been needed with an h index of greater than 15. Those with an h index of less than 10 rarely pass. There is no formal policy on this; it is just the way that decisions of editors have evolved over the past few years. Standards of notability for academics and scholars in the English Wikipedia are much higher than for some other subjects; garage bands or athletes sometime get by with only a handful of references. Number of citations also varies by subject, for example, a mainstream etymologist like Kim van der Linde has an GS h index of 4 (search on GS for author: "Kim van der Linde") so the subject is cited significantly more than that, maybe because of his unusual views. It is not the job of editors of these pages to determine whether a subject's views are correct or incorrect, good or evil. We only determine if they are notable from having been noted, and in this case it seems that they have. Xxanthippe (talk) 06:17, 23 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Thank you for answer. I am just a post-doc, and my h-index is below 10 (7, scholar misses software packages and fusses with my composite family name). If I would be notable, it would because of the Sophophora melanogaster controversy that recieved a substantial amount of press. The only nbthing I am saying is that a h-index of 14 is nothing special in my field. Nor is 500+ citations. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 15:52, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: complete lack of third-party sourcing, per WP:GNG and "lack of reliable, independent sources on the subject" caveat in WP:PROF. Given the topic's WP:FRINGE views, this also makes describing them problematical w.r.t. WP:DUE. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 03:47, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: sufficient third party sourcing having come to light to meet WP:GNG. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 14:22, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • <ec>weak keep I find the two reviews, by fellow creationists or not, to be sources toward the GNG. I agree the other sources are either irrelevant to the GNG or really weak and only #1 provides even a hint of value. His H-index, if accurate, is pretty low but almost up to notable realm (I'd say 15-20 in many fields would be plenty, I don't know this field). The claim of cites of 216, 153, etc. is actually a pretty strong claim to notability via WP:PROF. So we are over the bar for the GNG (if just barely) and there is a claim to real-world notability. Not the strongest case, but would seem to meet the letter (if just barely) and the spirit (a bit better) of our inclusion guidelines. I've AGF on the Hindex and cites, so if they are mistaken my !vote would change. Hobit (talk) 03:51, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    In this field, a h-index of 15 is easy to achieve, and many many biologists working for 15+ years in the field do have an h-index over 15. I just checked a few colleagues, and I pretty much can add at least 25% of Florida State University biology professors to wikipedia based on this criterion. And based on the general desciption of WP:PROF, I do not think this is what is wanted. See also the discussion I started here on the same issue. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 04:00, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Serious question: how many of them have two works with 150+ cites? In my field that's pretty rare for otherwise non-notable researchers. I just checked and the non-full profs in my department tend not to have this (and I'm at a top-10 place in my field). I realize biology may be really different though which is why I ask. Hobit (talk) 05:02, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Several. I have no interest in checking the list again. Yes, biology is different. A rough indicator is the general trend in citation indexes of the major journals in the field. Evolution and ecology are mid field players. Physics and astronomy and molecular biology are highly cited. Other fields are substantially less. Let me say it this way, I am not impressed by the relative low h-index and number of citations especially considering that this are overview works. But heck, if that is enough for WP, that is fine, and I will start adding a lot of academics. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 15:52, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • It should be noted that both creationist reviews are WP:SELFPUBlished, so really don't do anything to add to WP:GNG. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 05:12, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • That is interesting. As far as I can see only one is, but that might well move us below the GNG... Hobit (talk) 02:36, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wieland is the editor of Creation, and the MD of CMI, the organisation that publishes it -- so yes, it is self-published. Further, as a journal "dedicated to promoting pseudo-science and marginal or fringe theories" (WP:PROF#Notes and examples #17), it is not a WP:RS, and should not add to notability. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 03:27, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The article in its current is a textbook example of a coatrack article. Notice how there is NO citation whatsoever in the article serving to establish him specifically as a notable entomologist OR a notable anti-evolutionist. All sourcing is interested with discussing his arguments against evolution (including two out of three sources regarding his academic career, both of which seem coatrackish in their one right, and one of which is a dead link). I'm unclear whether this express a pro- or anti-evolution bias, but in any case, being a signtatory of A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism is not in any fashion an argument in favor of notability, nor is merely being anti-darwinian anywhere near being a "philosopher of science". Circéus (talk) 04:38, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
From an examination of who has been citing his books on butterflies (look at Cited by in GS) there is plenty of evidence of notability as an entomologist. Agreed that the article needs pruning. Xxanthippe (talk) 06:35, 23 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Citation of the book is no mark of notability, as noted by Kim above. ANY work of comparable scope will see a LOT of cites. His Concise atlas has less than fifty cites in Scholar, this monograph has well over a hundred. Should I be arguing that this is a proof of notability? Circéus (talk) 13:28, 23 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
WP:Prof#C1 says "The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources" so if the cites are independent it does not matter if the sources are self-published or not. Xxanthippe (talk) 08:47, 24 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]
WP:SPS≠WP:RS, so yes it does matter -- though I would note that the comment you were replying to makes no mention of SPSs. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 08:52, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The cites are not self-published and it is those that we accept as sources of notability. To be more explicit: we never accept the published work of a subject as a source of notability. A person may have published a thousand papers but if nobody cites them there is no notability. What contributes to notability (in the sense of WP:Prof#C1) is the number of times sources independent of the subject refer to them. In the case of researchers/scholars/academics we are fortunate to have the citation databases like Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science that allow us to determine this with some degree of objectivity. Xxanthippe (talk) 09:59, 24 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Yes, except the citations appear to be more for 'books containing large numbers of butterflies' than 'publications containing ground-breaking research on butterflies'. The first two also cite the works of PJ deVries in conjunction with d'Abrera -- and his most-cited book, The butterflies of Costa Rica and their natural history: Papilionidae, Pieridae, Nymphalidae, tops 500 citations. I think in this unusual situation, the linkage between brute number of citations and "significant impact in their scholarly discipline" breaks down. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 10:30, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Once again, it is not for us to judge whether his work is ground breaking research or just descriptions of butterflies. We just see that he is noted: that suffices for notability. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:30, 26 November 2010 (UTC).[reply]
It most certainly is "for us to judge whether his work" "made significant impact in their scholarly discipline". That is what the guideline explicitly requires us to do. "We just see that he is noted: that suffices for notability."=nothing more than a simple attempt to bypass the notability guidelines (which tell us in detail what constitutes notability). HrafnTalkStalk(P) 03:44, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep His butterfly books seem to be unique and recognized in the field world-wide. The information on his anti-evolution views is not remarkable really (it takes all kinds to make a world and we all have the right to our opinions) and should be trimmed down to maybe one sentence. Jaque Hammer (talk) 03:11, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Same result as for William Connolley (last nom, WP:PROF analysis), who has a (lower) h-index of 11 also in a field with high citation counts, and some incidental quotations for his other activities. D'Abrera was quoted in NYT once [1], his book was also reviewed in Klots, A. B. (1972). "Butterflies of the Australian Region. Bernard D'Abrera. Lansdowne, Melbourne, 1971 (U. S. Distributor, Entomological Reprint Specialists, Los Angeles). 416 pp., illus. $39.95". Science. 177 (4046): 342–343. Bibcode:1972Sci...177..342M. doi:10.1126/science.177.4046.342., he gets some book coverage in [2] (by Peter Laufer, who was on the Daily Show but doesn't have a Wikipedia page), blah, blah. Tijfo098 (talk) 04:10, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting quote from Arthur Shapiro (in Laufer's book) about d'Abreras' books:

I'm sure one can find a quote saying that Connolley's contribution to science/Wikipedia was absolutely indispensable or something to that effect. Tijfo098 (talk) 05:21, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 21:04, 30 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • delete Although nominator definitely writes novels and perhaps falls under WP:TOOLONG, I have read it and I am sold. The review of sources seems very convincing and competent, while the opposing view boils down to basically h-index theories which are clearly stated in policies we should not give much weight. An editor above claims in other words basically that there was a precedent established with listing index values for similar articles, but this is not so; we follow policies, not precedent set by editors who often vote and force index values as reasonable notability criteria. Delete per failing both WP:GNG and WP:PROF; on all counts.WildHorsesPulled (talk) 00:05, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Notable entomologist even without his contrary-to-the-scientific-mainstream viewpoints. - The Bushranger Return fireFlank speed 08:32, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: Like others, I am sold on the nom's detailed argument. I am far less sold on the Keep proponents, whose argument seems almost solely based on h-index results. As it happens, their blithe assertion that h-index = notability pass butts heads against WP:PROF, which doesn't - as Xxanthippe claims - actually explicitly cite it. A footnote to WP:PROF, however, turns up "Measures of citability such as H-index, G-index, etc, may be used as a rough guide in evaluating whether Criterion 1 is satisfied, but they should be approached with considerable caution since their validity is not, at present, widely accepted, and since they depend substantially on the source indices used."  Ravenswing  21:10, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Seems to be notable as an entomologist and the attention paid to his belief in intelligent design makes him more notable, not less. Described as a 'world authority in butterflies' here [3] and 'celebrated author of the Atlas of Butterflies of the World' here [4]. There is a chapter on lepidopterists and creationism in 'The Dangerous World of Butterflies: The Startling Subculture of Criminals, Collectors, and Conservationists', where d'Abrera's books are described as 'indispensable' by Arthur Shapiro in spite of 'their stupidities'. The books appear, from Google Books and Scholar, to have been widely cited by other authors. Also see this [5] by Philip James DeVries, where d'Abrera is described as eminent and one of the best-known lepidopterists in the world. He also has a butterfly named after him. If he's not notable, I'm a chocolate orange. Sumbuddi (talk) 21:53, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
A butterfly named after him. That clinches it for keep. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:23, 3 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]
He's also cited many times on Wikipedia: [6]. Sumbuddi (talk) 23:55, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
And a moth: [7] Sumbuddi (talk) 00:00, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Whow, so I must be important also with Drosophila vanderlindei. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 00:04, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe you are, but that's not on-topic for this discussion. The issue here seems to me that d'Abrera is an eminent lepidopterist and is cited in numerous book reviews, books, publications and so on, and his biography would be entirely uncontroversial, except that there seems to be a desire to counteract the 'argument from authority' used by the anti-evolutionists, by trying to prove that d'Abrera is not an authority/not notable and having him deleted here. Given d'Abrera's specialist subject area, the availability of references to his work is well more than sufficient. Given some of the quotes I list above, he plainly has 'made significant impact in his scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources' Sumbuddi (talk) 00:13, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, now you are assigning motivations to me I didn't have. Can we keep talking about the topic and refrain from commenting on the editors? I think he is not that imminent, especially because pretty much everything is self-published. For the type of books he is writing, they are terribly cited. Based on the criteria, I think generally, 10-20 percent of each major university should be added to WP, which as far as I can tell was never the idea. But maybe that is where we are heading, WP is not limited in space. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 00:22, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that he self publishes does not necessarily mean the books are not otherwise publishable. His books were published prior to him establishing his publishing company, and also have been published by other companies since - example Sphingidae Mundi published by Eric Classey [8] in 1986. His 'Saturniidae Mundi' (1995-1998) was published by Automeris Press. Prior to 1982 he appears to have been published by 'Littlehampton Book Services Ltd', 'Five Mile Press', 'Lansdowne Press', 'Country Life Books', inter alia. You can't simply write him off as 'self-published'.Sumbuddi (talk) 00:51, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oh whow, some of his work, as I indicated, is not self-published. What is that percentage. He books are otherwise pretty much unpublishable, not for the butterfly catalogues, but for the creationist rants he adds to them. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 05:26, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
WP:NOTPAPER, as noted. And as a notable lepidopterist who has both a butterfly and a moth named after him, I believe he is distinctly notable (and "10-20% of each major university", I would suspect, doesn't have a critter names after them). - The Bushranger Return fireFlank speed 00:52, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, having a species named after you is really not a big deal in the world of systematics. Pretty much everybody with a slight exposure has species named after them, even me. When indicated the 10-20% groups, that is based on other aspects, such as h-indexes and number of citations. Many scientists score far better on many aspects than this guy.-- Kim van der Linde at venus 05:26, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, mainly per Xxanthippe, who establishes that the attention devoted to his work by other scholars means that he passes WP:PROF. He is obviously drawing some heat here for various reasons, but given the citations arguing keep for this guy is entirely normal among those who regularly participate in AfD discussions regarding academics. I also think he passes WP:GNG, but given that he meets PROF it isn't really necessary to make that argument. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:25, 4 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Very clearly notable under WP:PROF as an expert in his subject. We have often accepted notability on the basis of having identified only a single new species, on the ground that each individual species is accepted here as notable . In this connection, I call attention to the additional reviews of his books, found in WorldCat. [9], and the fairly large number of holding libraries for each of them [10] A considerable amount of re-writing is however needed, to emphasise his purely scientific accomplishments. The extremely negative approach of section 3 is POV, and unacceptable--this section needs to be rewritten entirely. It is not our place to pass judgment, and to end the article as it now ends is unfair emphasis. DGG ( talk ) 02:20, 7 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is also "not our place" to WP:CENSOR the opinions of expert WP:RSs, particularly when said sources appear to be suggesting that d'A's expression of his pseudoscientific ideology in his works may be undermining his "purely scientific accomplishments". I would further suggest that the scientific community's expressions of disapproval are far more moderated, and far better substantiated than d'A's criticisms of said scientific community ("futile, conceited and vainglorious, the current preoccupation with pseudo-scientific speculation, which in the end, only distracts us all from the desperate measures we need to take to save our dying home, and our civilisation"[11]). HrafnTalkStalk(P) 04:09, 7 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Seeing as the article seems to be heading towards a weak keep or no consensus, I feel like saying that we did not do good here. A scientific peer of the subject nominates and points out that this is not notable, yet we decide we know better.WildHorsesPulled (talk) 00:25, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wild Horses Pulled, no worries. I think that the real issue here is not whether this guy is notable, but the criteria generally used by WP editors to determine notability. Under those WP:PROF criteria, he is not, even now that the article is beefed up. He might have some general notability, and yes, they have been able to pull up some reliable sources that mention him, primarily related to his creationist credentials. What worries me is the extreme low standard for inclusion most people use. As I indicated above, based on the criteria used to determine if he is notable, I definitely would be notable. I have stirred the tempest quite well recently resulting in more reliable third party sources covering my work than this guy (see my user page), I have a species named after me (Drosophila vanderlindei; really, having a species named after you in entomology is nothing when you consider that there are a multitude of millions of species to find names for), and if we take total number of citations, number of articles with 150+ citations and/or H-index, we can add at least a dozen of my direct colleagues to WP, equivalent to thousands of academics worldwide. In the end, the question is, how wide do we want to cast the net, and how do we determine who is included? To me, this nom has been very enlightening to get some insight in that. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 01:14, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree that he does not meet WP:PROF. However there is sufficient third party coverage of him that it is hard to claim (even by me, hardly an inclusionist) that he does not meet WP:GNG (and I'd probably feel obliged to vote 'keep' on an article about you as well). It is possible that for WP:BLPs that WP:GNG sets too low a standard, given the natural right to privacy of anybody who isn't either (i) very famous (ii) done something very stupid (and gotten caught by the media for doing it) or (iii) very dead. It's possible we need a mechanism for people to petition Wikipedia to say 'hey, I'm not that famous, please don't have an article about me.' HrafnTalkStalk(P) 10:20, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It does sometime happen on these pages that the subject of a BLP asks for it to be deleted. This is often granted when notability is borderline. Not relevant here as subject has made no request. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]
  • Keep - The discussion about whether he has this or that award may affect the structure of the article, but that still leaves open the question of whether there is enought reliable source material from which to develop an article on the Bernard d'Abrera topic. There is plenty of reliable source material for the article. I just did a quick search and added info to the article from five references. Google books brings up 1,570 results for "Bernard d'Abrera". Surely there is enought material in there for an article on the topic and it is available to any Wikipedian willing to go and get it. For the benefit of the encyclopedia, is imporant that Wikipedians do not put themselves above the collective of the reliable source material in deciding whether to delete or keep an article, especially for "one of the world's best-­­­known lepidopterists" who maintains the unpopular view that religion has a role in the green movement worldwide. Don't try to artifically pigeon hole this person into eight Wikipedia PROF elements and they say delete because he may not fit therein. Give the article time to develop and let the reliable source material tell the story. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 08:20, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. It is noted that some of the keeps are regulars on these academic AfD pages and that some of the deletes are newcomers with axes to grind about the theory of evolution. They regard this as sacrosanct dogma and consider that any challenge to it reveals the vilest heresy that must be suppressed at all costs. My own view? The theory of evolution is probably correct but like all good scientific theories it is falsifiable. It has survived all challenges to date and should be robust enough not to fear others. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:03, 8 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]
  • Contradict comment: this article was in fact created by an ID/creationism regular. AFAIK, none of the ID/creationism regulars are !voting 'delete'. As to "sacrosanct dogma", compare the original theory of evolution contained in The Origin of Species to the modern Theory of Evolution, then compare the claims of the scriptural geologists to the claims of Henry M. Morris. Guess which have changed more. "Sacrosanct dogma", my arse. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 03:41, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am afraid that salvo of subtleties goes over my head. The creationists and evolutionists should go and fight their battles elsewhere. I shan't be joining in. Xxanthippe (talk) 06:06, 9 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]
  • LOL. No, what anti-anti-evolution fighters generally want is to expose the people who are creationists. That would have been a major reason to keep this article. I personally can't care less about his creationist POV. What I did was take this person and measure him against WP:PROF which he fails. Well, looks like the criteria are used less stringent by the regulars, which is all fine and good. So, he is 'notable', lets close this AfD as keep and move on. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 04:33, 9 December 2010 (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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