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 as a synthesis of unrelated materials to bolster an otherwise non-notable topic. The majority in the discussion agrees with the detailed analysis of User:XOR'easter, which finds a mix of unreliable sources with reliable ones that discuss other "quantum" subjects (such as quantum biology), which have been related to quantum psychology via this article rather than in the reliable sources themselves. Neither the counterarguments nor the article itself provide any reason to discount the majority position. RL0919 (talk) 14:36, 16 September 2019 (UTC) Added: Just to avoid confusion, let me note that I've re-created the title as an alternate-capitalization redirect to the article about the book. --RL0919 (talk) 14:46, 16 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Quantum psychology[edit]

Quantum psychology (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Original research via synthesis, as discussed on the talk page; "quantum psychology" does not appear to exist as an actual field of study. Flagged as OR via SYNTH a few months after creation; excuse is that it's an "emerging field", which appears to mean "hasn't reached RSes." No action to fix problems in that time. Refs are impressive at first glance, but do not support the existence of a science called "quantum psychology". At most this is a book title (which already has an unrelated article, Quantum Psychology; if there were to be an article about a topic called "quantum psychology", it would require new text and new references. Delete and redirect to the book title. Declined PROD, but not addressing any of the long-running issues. David Gerard (talk) 08:08, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. David Gerard (talk) 08:08, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions. David Gerard (talk) 08:08, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep/merge There's more than one book about this and so the broad topic is therefore not original. The details of the current content are a matter of ordinary editing, not deletion per WP:IMPERFECT. It seems easy to find sources which might be used to improve the topic such as this. We have other related pages such as quantum mind and quantum mysticism. Like much of psychology and philosophy, the material is quite ineffable or wooly but so it goes. As there's lots written about it, we ought cover it in some way as turning it into a redlink will just invite re-creation. Andrew D. (talk) 09:28, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Your cited source speculates on the concept and at no point includes the term "quantum psychology". The problem with the current content is that the sources don't support the existence of the field as a field - David Gerard (talk) 15:28, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I consider this to be a broad topic for which we might expect a variety of terminology. That source's sub-title is "An emerging theory takes principles from quantum physics and applies them to psychology." and so seems quite appropriate for the topic. If you're hung up on the exact phrase then note that it was used extensively before Wilson's book in the work of Oshins at Stanford and the MRI. See Quantum Psychology & the Metalogic of Second Order Change, for example. Andrew D. (talk) 12:52, 10 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Then we would need an article that supports said sources, rather than its present state, a rambling riff on the theme of the words whose sources don't support the rambling. As I said in the nomination: "if there were to be an article about a topic called "quantum psychology", it would require new text and new references" - David Gerard (talk) 13:39, 10 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
        • New text and references are added by ordinary editing per our policy which explains that:

Perfection is not required: Wikipedia is a work in progress. Collaborative editing means that incomplete or poorly written first drafts can evolve over time into excellent articles. Even poor articles, if they can be improved, are welcome.

Deletion is not appropriate in such cases because it tends to discourage and disrupt editing per WP:BITE. See also WP:ATD, "If editing can improve the page, this should be done rather than deleting the page." Andrew D. (talk) 16:16, 10 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"If". XOR'easter (talk) 16:31, 10 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The "Metalogic of Second Order Change" paper (a) has no indication of being reliably published, (b) makes a much weaker claim than the article it is being used to justify (only arguing that it is possible to find mathematics in psychology in common with that in quantum physics), and (c) had virtually no influence perhaps because it is pretty incoherent anyway. (It demonstrates ignorance of quantum physics, making assertions like all quantum interactions take place through the property of not being commutative. This is false, almost to the point of nonsensicality. Sometimes mathematical objects in quantum mechanics commute, and sometimes they don't; what matters is knowing which is which.) Finding things that say the words "quantum" and "psychology" together is not a challenge. Demonstrating that "quantum psychology" is a well-defined subject is. XOR'easter (talk) 16:39, 10 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Many topics are not well-defined. For example, river tells us that "There are no official definitions for the generic term river..." and, per Heraclitus, "no one can step into the same river twice". A variety of authors have written at length about the topic of quantum psychology by this title. Naturally, they have different perspectives and positions because the matter is difficult and tentative. This makes it a broad topic rather than a narrow, precise one but this does not mean we must or should delete it. Andrew D. (talk) 15:22, 11 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

A variety of worthless sources have blathered about "quantum" this and that. We should not try to bring form to their shapeless chaos. XOR'easter (talk) 15:51, 11 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOTOR states that "At times, sources provide conflicting facts and opinions. Comparing and contrasting these conflicts is not generally classed as original research...". Andrew D. (talk) 16:32, 11 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That's not policy. WP:SYNTH is. Moreover, WP:NOTOR says, Comparing and contrasting conflicting facts and opinion is not original research, as long as any characterization of the conflict is sourced to reliable sources. The sources here are not reliable. Thus, NOTOR does not apply here anyway. (The sentence you quote goes on to presume that the nature of the conflict can be referenced to sources meeting WP:VERIFY, which is not true in this case. As noted below, the synthesis is blatant.) XOR'easter (talk) 16:59, 11 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOTOR is an explanatory supplement and the issue of handling conflicts and confusion in sources is a common one which we do routinely by ordinary discussion and editing. If we need more sources then, per WP:NEXIST, then we look for them before giving up and deleting everything. For example, see this paper published by the Royal Society: Quantum physics in neuroscience and psychology. Andrew D. (talk) 18:30, 11 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

That paper is (a) already mentioned in the article — multiple times, with two different reference numbers — and (b) a primary source not suitable for evaluating "conflicts". (Nor, might I add, is "published by the Royal Society" an automatic guarantee of impressiveness.) I've done the WP:BEFORE/WP:NEXIST dance. The sources that exist do not establish that "quantum psychology" is a coherent topic and do not provide the foundation for us to write a legitimately NPOV article upon. If I believed that this article could be fixed through ordinary editing, I would have fixed it back in January. I recall that I was tempted to take it to AfD then, but I got distracted by other matters before overcoming the activation energy to do so. XOR'easter (talk) 20:38, 11 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Andrew - if you want to save this article, we would most welcome good cites that show that "quantum psychology" - both words together - is actually the name of a field at all. The cites presently in the article don't, and nothing you've brought here does either. If you have such cites, they would be the most useful contribution to saving the article - David Gerard (talk) 22:23, 11 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge - Quantum mind, Quantum psychology, Quantum mysticism, Quantum brain dynamics ... too many articles all trying to tie mind to quantum physics with varying degrees of pseudoscience woven in, indeed the BS constituent looks like the unifying element in the whole thing, even if there genuinely is some physics under there somewhere. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:45, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Your quantum comment seems to be NAH:IDONTLIKEIT. The field is three decades old, and page sources back up its real-world study and research. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:44, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem is that the sources do nothing of the sort - David Gerard (talk) 15:30, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep, the page is well sourced, and the 1990 book shows that this term, topic, and expanding field of study has been around and notable for almost 30 years. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:39, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The page is sourced to high-quality sources that don't support the existence of the field, and are functionally decorative rather than enlightening. The 1990 book is philosophical speculation by an author who is neither a psychologist nor a physicist, and there's no evidence that any of the other cited sources follow from the book - David Gerard (talk) 15:29, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • They're not all that high-quality, either. XOR'easter (talk) 22:04, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Synthesis of ingredients that were themselves rather woolly. This isn't a field that exists as a field; it's a heap of things that have used the word "quantum". Nothing is sufficiently clearly written to be worth salvaging in a merge. The "sources" are a mix of unreliable, irrelevant and spurious. XOR'easter (talk) 17:46, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  For example, the claim Recent advances in quantum biology have given a significant boost to this field has three sources. One of them is mostly about photosynthesis and doesn't even mention the words brain or mind. Another is also about photosynthesis and avian magnetoreception, with the only occurrence of brain in the title of an article in the bibliography, an article that argues quantum effects don't matter in brains. Only one of the three is actually about the claim in question, and it is a primary source indulging in qualitative speculation (and published by a company we should generally avoid). The next source after that is a 1993 book being used as a source about "research" being done in the present day. After that is a line of vague twaddle (Quantum theory, however, implies that the observer and the observed phenomena are innately linked) supported by one book advocating a respectable but certainly not universal or even widespread interpretation of quantum mechanics, and two books of quantum woo. The next sentence is again a garbled phrasing of an interpretation-dependent claim, supported by a source that in fact argues against the late-period Bohm view invoked three footnotes prior. It looks very much like the text of this page was thrown together first and "references" were sprinkled in later without regard to physics, neurobiology, psychology or philosophy. XOR'easter (talk) 18:14, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  As further evidence consistent with that last speculation, note that it relies upon an obscure article in a psychology journal to define terms of quantum physics, rather than, for example, physics books. I really can't stress enough how bad the sourcing on this article actually is. XOR'easter (talk) 22:03, 9 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  For another example, Atmanspacher et al. (2002) is cited to support the sentence Examples of complementarity are being observed between mind and matter or Jung's psychological types with complementary pairs of thinking and feeling and intuition and perception. Except what Atmanspacher et al. actually do is spin a yarn about the possibility of a theory inspired by quantum physics, not quantum physics itself. They offer an analogy which they argue might be useful in psychology (and they admit that their attempt to generalize the mathematics throws away many interesting features of the physics, like Bell's theorem). They mention Jung's psychological types as "candidates for complementary relations"; note the word candidates. This page seems incapable of representing its own sources correctly. XOR'easter (talk) 15:05, 11 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  More referencing problems: citations 26 and 34 are to NeuroQuantology, which is not at all a reliable source. Citation 31 is to another Frontiers Media journal, which as mentioned above is a publisher we should avoid. Citation 38 (Soon et al. 2008) is among those supposedly supporting the claim Principles of quantum theory including complementarity, uncertainty principle and quantum field theory are being applied in the study of unconscious processes, decision making and free will. It doesn't mention quantum mechanics at all. Citations 45 and 47 are to other Wikipedia articles. The "ontological dualism" business in the "Critique" section might charitably be described as POV-pushing. The assertion Modern theories investigating quantum correlates in the brain and mind could be classified into the following categories is blatant synthesis. Preserving anything from this article would amount to accepting a pseudoscientific snow-job. XOR'easter (talk) 16:22, 11 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per XOR. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:24, 9 September 2019 (UTC).[reply]
• Delete per XOR. --Srleffler (talk) 00:52, 10 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Wilson, who apparantly first used the term, wrote great fiction. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 08:32, 10 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• The delete comments don't seem to be taking editor AndrewD's comments above into consideration, so hopefully the closer will. As for Wilson, he wrote much more non-fiction than fiction (the book was nonfiction). Randy Kryn (talk) 13:37, 10 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Looks to me like they have - David Gerard (talk) 13:40, 10 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

From previous experiences I ignore Andrew in deletion discussion. He can be relied on to say keep in really obvious deletes! Roxy, the dog. wooF 15:39, 10 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Editors ignoring the information AndrewD brings to the discussion means they make delete-keep decisions without knowing the presented points of view. Hopefully the closer will be discerning and regard all information brought forward as relevant before rejecting it because of who presents it. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:23, 10 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - XOR has done an excellent job at demonstrating the issues regarding WP:SYNTH and WP:OR with this article, as well as doing a thorough analysis of the sources. I agree with his assessment. Rorshacma (talk) 18:04, 11 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Synthesis and WP:OR. For example, it tells: "Recent advances in quantum biology have given a significant boost to this field". What? No. My very best wishes (talk) 17:32, 12 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete I planing for a long argument to this deleted. I'm glad the work has been done for me. scope_creep^Talk 18:45, 13 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - if anything in that article is relevant enough it can be mentioned in Quantum mysticism, but I'm not sure if that article needs more examples of people not understanding what they are doing. --mfb (talk) 04:15, 15 September 2019 (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.