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Barzilai paradox

Barzilai paradox (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

Promotion of work that is not notable, not peer-reviewed, and nowhere simultaneously original and correct. —SlamDiego_←T 02:55, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. I don't know enough to say whether the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Press is peer reviewed, or whether they would be an appropriate place to establish a mathematical concept in game theory as peer reviewed. I will say that I turned up one person who absolutely hates this guy. A professor at Columbia named David Krantz has an eight-page working paper from 2005 on his site that criticizes just about everything one could about him, including this paradox. Krantz works off of a paper of Barzilai's presented at the 2004 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, which isn't listed as a reference in the article but may have been superseded by the ASME Press book; in my field, acceptance of a paper at a conference counts for absolutely nothing in terms of peer-review, but I understand that this may be different in engineering; GScholar shows three citations of this paper, one of which is Barzilai's and another that is unintelligible. In any case, Krantz's bile might or might not speak to notability, an engineer would have to speak to peer review, and I don't believe that a concept's being "nowhere simultaneously original and correct" is currently listed as a criterion for deletion. RJC 04:26, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: Being simultaneously original and correct would speak to notability. Being correct would speak to whether it were pseudo-science, and to how the article currently presents its subject; the article could in theory be amended (rather than simply deleted) to compensate for the incompetence of the work. (Lack of notability would remain a problem.) —SlamDiego_←T 06:01, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: The Barzilai paradox is part of Barzilai's work with regards to his research into the mathematical foundations of utility theory, decision theory and measurement theory. Krantz is one of the authors of the book "Foundations of Measurement" which is part of measurement theory. Barzilai has found errors in measurement theory, especially with its mathematical foundation. He produced a new theory of measurement that does have a mathematical foundation. Please note that there is no proof in literature that the operations of addition and multiplication apply to the scales produced by classical measurement theory. His work is of importance and notable because of its implications in all fields that relate to measurement theory including utility theory, decision theory, measurement theory and economics. The 2004 IEEE paper indeed superseded the ASME Press book. I would appreciate some feedback on how to prevent deletion. Ruud Binnekamp (talk) 12:36, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment: As a beginning, find and cite examples of Barzilai being published in peer-reviewed publications of economics or of psychology, which are the fields to which his theory would apply. —SlamDiego_←T 12:45, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
      • Actually, I for one would settle for a reliable source (not written by Barzilai) calling the Barzilai paradox by that name. If such a source exists, we can discuss notability, which is a more subjective criterion. If it does not, then notability is irrelevant since even the name does not qualify for inclusion per WP:NEO. --Zvika (talk) 14:14, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
        • The Krantz paper referred to above calls the paradox by its name. Ruud Binnekamp (talk) 14:45, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
          • The Krantz paper fails as a reliable source: it is just an attack posted on his webpage. Something other than that would be necessary to show that this is not a neologism often-repeated by Barzilai in papers which get published for demonstrating something modestly related to it. RJC 17:16, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
          • The Krantz paper uses this name with quotes, implying that this is not an accepted term. Sorry, I'm not convinced. --Zvika (talk) 20:31, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
            • And, just a reminder, WP:NEO sets a much higher bar than a single paper. --agr (talk) 20:44, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
• Delete: One independent GScholar ref does not establish notability and also the title appears to be a neologism (see WP:NEO). I would encourage the nominator to drop the "nowhere simultaneously original and correct" claim as it is a potential distraction as RJC suggests. --agr (talk) 06:53, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: Okay. I don't need to fight that battle here, so I've withdrawn that part. —SlamDiego_←T 10:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
• delete I see no citations of this work in the ISI World of Knowledge, nor does "Barzilai paradox" generate any WoS hits. I think this means there's no scientific equivalent of "widespread coverage" of the topic in reliable secondary sources required by WP:N. I see no strong evidence that anyone but Barzilai himself is working with this idea, therefore no evidence that it's notable. Pete.Hurd (talk) 07:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
• Delete Looks like a neologism to me. --Zvika (talk) 08:49, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
• Objection to deletion I would like to register an objection to deletion because the reasons given for deletion are baseless. Also, Krantz's personal attack is ugly and so is the insistence on referencing it. Ruud Binnekamp (talk) 01:40, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Reply: Baseless? Where are the references to peer-reviewed work by Barzilai or to peer-reviewed work by others about the ostensible paradox? (Krantz's personal attack isn't particularly ugly, and amounts to no more than calling Barzilai on his failure to actually attend to the literature. Meanwhile that failure causes Barzilai to claim that Krantz &alii have ignored issues that they have instead discussed at length; Barzilai's work is no less a personal attack, but in his case the attack is quite mistaken.) —SlamDiego_←T 03:11, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment Let's try to keep this discussion civil and constructive. Ruud, I said above that if you can find at least one WP:RS, not written by Barzilai, which calls Barzilai's paradox by that name, then that would be a step in showing that this article is not WP:NEO. Can you provide such a reference? The others in this discussion have not been able to do so. --Zvika (talk) 07:09, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

  —Preceding unsigned comment added by SlamDiego (talk • contribs) 08:04, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

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