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This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was keep. Deathphoenix 19:13, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Philosophy of chemistry

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Article is a substub on a non-topic. No value currently, and I see no way it could be expanded into a worthwhile article -- chemistry is a science, not a philosophy. Egomaniac 23:56, 23 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't think there's much to distinguish the philosophy of chemists from that of most other scientists. Redirect to Philosophy of science. Raven42 00:33, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • Delete. Contrived and uneeded mess. The only link to it was from Philosophy of science and I just got rid of that along with a half dozen red links to various other philosophy of ... subsciences. -Vsmith 01:07, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Also any philosophy specific to chemistry sould be included in the chemistry article. Also any redirect should be to chemistry as well. - Vsmith 01:17, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete Abstain. The article goes around in circles and never gets around explaining what it is about; no amount of improvement can save a seemingly bogus article. Keep.--Sn0wflake 01:26, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. - Jpo 02:50, Feb 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep I think its possible to work up an article on this topic, and I've just rewritten it to show how. Much more might be done on these lines. --Christofurio 00:45, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)
Why not just write a philosophy section for the chemistry article instead? -Vsmith 02:02, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The one choice would be no more or less arbitrary than the oter. There are articles on the philosophy of mathematics as well as mathematics, on the philosophy of physics as well as of physics. There is even an article on the philosophy of thermal and statistical physics, which seems to me to be a good deal more specific than chemistry! --Christofurio 04:28, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)
I am sorry to say this, but your version of the article makes it even more in accordance to the VfD deletion police. You aren't talking about the subject within the article, but rather you are explaining topics which, albeit related, belong to their own articles. --Sn0wflake 02:46, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The article is still a work in progress. When you check it again you'll see that I've added the pub. date of a book which is specifically titled The Philosophy of Chemistry, the name of its author, and two other philosophers who work in this field. If you are concerned about notability, check out this link, http://www.hyle.org/ -- --Christofurio 04:28, Feb 25, 2005 (UTC)
Christofurio, I got your message regarding the edits and appreciate the attempt to clean the article up. Do you have any ideas for how to grow the article from where it currently stands? I'll reconsider my stance if so. Egomaniac 23:29, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I've just divided it into sections distinguishing results from method, and expanded a little about why handedness is a philosophically interesting result. I think somebody else should be able to take it from here, and I've done enough to qualify it as a notable scholarly field. --Christofurio 15:41, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)
I feel really bad about this in the face of all the work you've done on the article, but it just still isn't doing anything for me. I'm sticking to my original Delete. Egomaniac 00:17, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, I fail to see how the philosophy of chemistry is vastly different to the philosophy of science, and this article doesn't do anything to inform me--nixie 01:08, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Is the philosophy of thermal and statistical physics vastly different from the philosophy of science? That's been around for two years. Has there been any effort to Vfd it? This article as it stands should give you a sense of where the philosophy of chemistry fits within the range of philosophical inquiries into the sciences. --Christofurio 15:36, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)
Philosophy of thermal and statistical physics is, in itself, not Wikipedia material. Not due to the content, but due to the "under construction" editor's note. If you understand about the subject, you should probably fix that before it goes to VfD. --Sn0wflake 16:31, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I understand almost nothing about thermal and statistical physics. Sorry. Judging from the comments on the talk page there, a couple of editors who do seem to have been knowledgeable started that project but then grew bored with it. --Christofurio 19:08, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)
  1. Redirect to philosophy of science. Neutralitytalk 19:13, Feb 26, 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong keep Philosophy of chemistry is clearly a topic of substantial discussion and inquiry. A google search for the phrase (with quotes to yield only pages containing the words in a phrase) yields 10,500 hits. Wikipedia has articles on topics that have 5% of that much internet presence. If the article is currently substandard, there is clearly enough material to improve it with. Giving that potential for the article, chemistry is an important enough discipline to give the philosophy of it it's own page, just as the other topics within philosophy of science have their own pages.
I'm concerned that some of the votes for deletion have not taken into account a thorough review of the abundant philosophy of chemistry material available on the web. An interesting book review of Of Minds and Molecules: New Philosophical Perspectives on Chemistry by Michael Weisberg, Philosophy, Stanford University concludes "issues in philosophy of chemistry may not raise the kind of deep conceptual perplexity that the quantum mechanical measurement problem raises, and they may not be as conceptually complex as debates about optimality arguments in evolutionary biology. They are, however, essential to understanding what makes science work and progress."
The review also wites: "The contributors to this book are philosophers, chemists and philosopher-chemist teams (including the editors). Collaboration between philosophers and chemists is one of its most exciting features; it focuses the discussion on the application of traditional topics in philosophy of science to chemistry and on previously unexplored topics native to chemistry."
These directories appear to be good places to start research:

--Nectarflowed 20:15, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • Keep. It makes a nice change from all the fictional fancruft! Miss Pippa 22:07, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • Thanks to Miss Pippa and Nectar. It seems clear with our respective dissents that there is no consensus for deletion. --Christofurio 16:23, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep Someone above said chemistry is a science, not a philosophy. Well, science is not philosophy, either, so would that mean the philosophy of science, a major discipline, ought to be abandoned? Specific applications of science have peculiar philosophical implications with respect to methodology and underlying assumptions. Most philosophers of science are oriented towards physics, and, happily, a growing number are coming from chemistry and biology. It makes perfect sense to have such an article. icut4u
    • Now, yes. Take a look at the original version to see what I was talking about when I said that, though. And Christofurio, I apologize for taking so long to be convinced. Keep Egomaniac 22:35, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.

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