Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chemical postevolution

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 Speedy keep. Synergy 01:00, 29 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Chemical postevolution[edit]

~~Delete:~~Merge to Total synthesis: obscure protoneologism. All sources cited are in primary literature. No indication of widespread use in secondary sources (no GoogleBooks hits, only 6 GoogleScholar hits). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 12:36, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Changing !vote to merge (per comment below). It seems that this obscure protoneologism is merely a synonym for the more widely used term total synthesis. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 03:11, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. —Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 12:36, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

[First of all, a comment for the user Hrafn: it is worldwide accepted academic style to let the other opinion speak out and not to try to "win" by just deleting the statement of others.]

Comment: it is the convention on AfDs to value brevity, clarity and basis in policy -- your personal missive addressed to me exhibited none of these traits, so was moved to talk. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 02:33, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The term chemical postevolution is not a neologism. It is an important scientific term in a special but widespread technical setting:

How to improve natural products (the most important source of antibacterial- and anticancer drugs).

That this term is not found in google books can easily be understood when looking at the references, very new review articles from peer reviewed internationally renowned journals (Angewandte Chemie International Edition). The term "chemical postevolution" was even on the cover of one issue (Angew. Chem. 2006, August issue).

This was not in primary literature, as stated by Hrafn, but in REVIEW articles. Chemical postevolution, it is a special way to look upon chemical drug optimization. When seeing how nature has optimized its natural products (secondary metabolites like taxol [a mulitbillion dollar cancer drug] or daptomycin [a hundred million antiinfective drug] one can also understand where are the limits of natural structural optimization. When seeing these limitations, white spots in natures space become obvious, these are the most promising areas for chemists in drug discovery to go into.

For these reasons I would like to renominate the article on the important term chemical postevolution. Best regards, Paxillus (Paxillus (talk) 19:32, 25 January 2009 (UTC))[reply]

For example, chemical postevolution is mentioned and discussed in the following REVIEW article (not primary literatur) Angew. Chem. 2006, 118, 5194–5254; Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2006, 45, 5072–5129. Antibacterial Natural Products in Medicinal Chemistry—Exodus or Revival? PMID 16881035 Paxillus (talk) 19:36, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Furthermore, 8 entries in Google Scholar all referring to peer reviewed internationally renowned scientific journals (ChemMedChem, ChemBioChem, Angewandte Chemie Int. Edition): http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=de&q=%22Chemical+post+evolution%22&spell=1 and http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_epq=Chemical+postevolution (Paxillus (talk) 19:57, 25 January 2009 (UTC))[reply]

Keep. While this is relatively new, it is important and is sourced to review articles. Something that gets a cover on Angewandte Chemie is certainly notable. I have taken the liberty of reformating Paxillus' comments above to the normal format for AfD. --Bduke (Discussion) 22:23, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Question: does the AC cover mention 'chemical postevolution' or merely the article (which may emphasise the term total synthesis more than c.pe. -- see comment below)? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 03:11, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Second question: are the cited AC articles mainly on the topic of "chemical postevolution" (as the term is defined in Chemical postevolution) or on Total synthesis (as their abstracts suggest)? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 07:25, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Merge. I think a full article on this topic is premature at this time. The topic is very interesting though, and should probably be discussed briefly elsewhere. I don't think there is an intrinsic problem with naming an article by a relatively new scientific term. The problem is that a dozen or so scientific articles on the concept discussed in the article, apparently all from the same group of researchers(?), is not enough to warrant a full article, see WP:NOTABILITY. A longish section in a related article could serve the same purpose, however.

To be clear: There seems to be nothing wrong with the content of the article, and I don't think Hrafn or Silly rabbit wanted to insinuate that. This is just a matter of Wikipedia favouring long comprehensive articles rather than fragmentation, and of Wikipedia not trying to cover important topics faster than the scientific community picks them up. My opinion is based mainly (on policies and) on the way we routinely deal with technical topics in mathematics.

(Added after edit conflict with Bduke) Bduke's arguments sound convincing to me, and keeping the article is certainly an acceptable outcome for me. Losing the content would not be acceptable. --Hans Adler (talk) 22:33, 25 January 2009 (UTC) (edited 00:17, 26 January 2009 (UTC))[reply]

Question: what article would you be proposing merging it into, if that idea went ahead? Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 02:36, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure, probably drug discovery or one of the articles linked from there. --Hans Adler (talk) 02:43, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Keep Personally, I think this is a relatively foolish term for "laboratory modification of natural products" but it does seem to have enough acceptance. DGG (talk) 23:32, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: one of the cited Angewandte Chemie article's abstract lists 'Chemical postevolution' as a mere synonym of 'total synthesis' ("total synthesis (chemical postevolution)") and lists the latter as one of the article's 'keywords'. The other cited A.C. article abstract mentions total synthesis but not chemical postevolution. It would therefore seem reasonable to merge this article into Total synthesis. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 03:11, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. A rarely used expression, but it can be found in a few scientific articles.Biophys (talk) 03:28, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Chemical postevolution is not the same as total synthesis, it is a special way to improve natural products (Concept). Total synthesis, de novo synthesis and semisynthesis are all methods to follow this concept.

Answer: The article in Review Article in Angew. Chem. discusses Chemical Postevolution.

Chemical postevolution was also discussed in plenary lectures of top conferences such as the ICAAC or the Gordon Conference on Antiinfectives. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.64.228.99 (talk) 07:57, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia as opposed to a dictionary, it makes perfect sense to discuss several related words with distinct meanings in a single article. As the term "chemical postevolution" seems to be relatively new and not yet widely used (has it been used by researchers outside a small group that came up with it?), it's probably best to discuss it in the context of another, related article. It's not optimal, but acceptable, if that article is primarily about a more special topic, and in that case it's likely the article will be renamed once the more general term becomes more widespread. --Hans Adler (talk) 09:08, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Chemical postevolution - great term in Darwin's year! Since Chemical postevolution has nothing to do with the term total synthesis, I suggest to use a discrete article.

(SpookyB (talk) 16:05, 26 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.