Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Biology

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Deletion Sorting
Project

This is a collection of discussions on the deletion of articles related to Biology. It is one of many deletion lists coordinated by WikiProject Deletion sorting. Anyone can help maintain the list on this page.

Adding a new AfD discussion
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Other types of discussions
You can also add and remove other discussions (prod, CfD, TfD etc.) related to Biology. For the other XfD's, the process is the same as AfD (except {{Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/PageName}} is used for MFD and {{transclude xfd}} for the rest). For PRODs, adding a link with {{prodded}} will suffice.
Further information
For further information see Wikipedia's deletion policy and WP:AfD for general information about Articles for Deletion, including a list of article deletions sorted by day of nomination.


Archived discussions (starting from September 2007) may be found at:
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Biology

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Janet Frost

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Janet Frost (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View AfD | edits since nomination)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Fails to pass the notability guidelines for academics. While the article says that she was a 'Distinguished Professor', none of the sources nor the Capital Community College website match that. Sgubaldo (talk) 11:13, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Biosynthesis of a Biotin Compound Containing ⁷⁵Se

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Biosynthesis of a Biotin Compound Containing ⁷⁵Se (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View AfD | edits since nomination)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Non-notable dissertation; there is nothing independent, like a review, that mentions it anywhere. I suppose the closest notability guideline is WP:NBOOK or WP:TEXTBOOKS, and it doesn't pass either. Has previously been de-PRODed by article creator. Sgubaldo (talk) 13:23, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am also nominating the following related page because it's another dissertation by the same author, created by the same user, that's just as non-notable:

Structural Studies of the Enzyme D-Alanyl-D-Alanine Carboxypeptidase from Bacillus stearothermophilus (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
  • Delete both Of all the things that would have to happen before we can entertain a separate article on a single publication, demonstrated enormous public recognition would be the first. These ain't no annus mirabilis papers. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 13:50, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete No evidence of secondary coverage by RS, and Wikipedia isn't a place to post summaries of decades-old dissertations. WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 13:55, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Both don't even attempt to demonstrate notability. Note that the user has been blocked before for insisting on creating pages about non-notable people. Tercer (talk) 14:45, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The user has also created several articles on the books (whose notability I also question) written by James A. Frost, the father of the person who wrote this dissertation. Sgubaldo (talk) 15:00, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete both. I PRODed this when it was first created, but didn't want to fight it when the creator de-PRODed it. Reasoning above matches mine.— Moriwen (talk) 15:41, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete both. We have no evidence of WP:NBOOK notability such as would be provided by multiple independent in-depth published reviews of these works. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:02, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete both. It is exceedingly rare for theses to be notable as publications in their own right. Occasionally, they can be cited in an article about the topic that they address; if the author is notable, then mentioning their thesis is a standard part of a biography. But a PhD thesis is not going to be an article-worthy book in itself, outside of exceptional circumstances that do not apply here, and this holds even more strongly for master's theses. XOR'easter (talk) 17:33, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Transwiki. The fact that these articles do not meet the present notability guidelines of the English Wikipedia, of course, precludes them from existing here -- but it's really hard to morally justify feeding things into the shredder that clearly took as much time and effort (and produced an outcome so well-written and succinct) as these did. jp×g🗯️ 17:42, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't see much evidence of effort having gone into these pages at all. One of them is three lists of bullet points, including uninformative glurge like "The study provided valuable insights" and vague speculation about how these "research insights" could somehow help develop new medicines. The other is more of the same ("several practical applications across diverse fields", "seamlessly integrate into academic courses and training programs"). Honestly, I wonder if these pages came straight out of an "AI". XOR'easter (talk) 18:02, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, let me take a look at the actual dissertation PDF then. jp×g🗯️ 18:09, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy delete as a hoax (WP:G3).
The introduction section of the PDF says explicitly that the thesis being tested was to attempt to replace sulfur with selenium in biotin in order to better understand the extent to which selenium could substitute for sulfur in metabolic pathways. This is mentioned nowhere in the article, which only talks about analyzing biotin itself.
Most concerning are the methods of the dissertation as described in the article. It mentions using chromatography and mass spectrometry, which I feel like at least implies GC-MS, but certainly and necessarily entails MS. Well, the dissertation has paper chromatography and no mass spectrometry at all. The only analytical instruments mentioned whatsoever in the dissertation are a gamma scintillation spectrometer, a radiochromatogram scammer, ion exchange columns for paper chromatography, bioautograms, and weighing equipment (not specified).
Based on the outright fabrication of major details of the dissertation, the vapidity of the conclusions drawn therefrom, and the rather recognizable bullet-point format of GPT output, this article is a straightforward WP:G3 speedy-deletable hoax. Perhaps an even more pernicious thing, hitherto undifferentiated by the speedy deletion criteria, but I will nonetheless do so myself: a "slophoax". jp×g🗯️ 18:39, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For the record I will note here that mass spectrometry is an extremely expensive and high-precision analytical technique -- it is absolutely inconceivable that it could be carried out in the course of some research and then not commented on once in a paper published from that research. The only remotely plausible explanation, when combined with the slop formatting and the other questionable claims made in the article, is that it was falsified. jp×g🗯️ 18:41, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the other article, allegedly based on this:
  • The enzyme was expressed in Escherichia coli, purified using affinity chromatography, and crystallized for structural analysis.
No it wasn't: all of the Cpase was obtained from a gene in B. stearothermophilus inserted into (and expressed by) P. pastoris. There's no way you could confuse this with E. coli. The paper does not mention E. coli. The only way you could possibly write this sentence is if you were making stuff up and hadn't read the paper.
The part about affinity chromatography is also false, per p33 of the paper: "Thus affinity chromatography did not appear to hold much promise".
  • The entire "applications" section is nonsense: "Structural Analysis Techniques: The methodologies utilized in the dissertation, such as X-ray crystallography and molecular modeling, serve as essential points of reference for researchers engaged in similar structural investigations of other proteins and enzymes." None of this means anything. "The methodologies utilized" here refer to -- I mean, computers were utilized in the dissertation too, that doesn't mean Wikipedia is an "application" of it. The methodologies and discoveries outlined in Frost's dissertation can seamlessly integrate into academic courses and training programs within biochemistry, microbiology, and structural biology -- what???
This article, too, is a slophoax, and needs to be speedily deleted as such. jp×g🗯️ 19:32, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete On multiple grounds. And take action against any editor deliberately putting in hoax material. North8000 (talk) 20:05, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy delete on grounds of "the author didn't even read the first page of the dissertation to begin with, and made up stuff". Still baffled that it is mentioned nowhere that selenium-75 is supposed to replace sulfur in biotin, even though that's, like, the whole point of the thing. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:35, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Quoting page 1 of the introduction: This thesis was undertaken in order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the penetration of the sulfur metabolic pathways by selenium. Specifically, an attempt was made to determine if selenium could replace sulfur in biotin synthesized by Phycomyces blakesleeanus. (emphasis mine)
    Nowhere is "sulfur" mentioned in the body of the article. The author clearly didn't read the paper and made up the whole summary (most likely with ChatGPT). Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:41, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete both, for the reasons given above. In addition, as a biochemist and enzymologist myself, I'm far from convinced that Janet Frost herself is notable enough for an article. Her name isn't rare enough to make it easy to search for her on Google Scholar, but I haven't found anything to indicate notability. Athel cb (talk) 13:40, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Biology proposed deletions

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