Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kevin Knuth

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 no consensus. Opinion is split, with a slight majority for deletion, but no consensus. The notability of academics is a notoriously contentious topic, and people here don't agree about whether Knuth is notable for his academic work, his UFO-related activity, or both. Sandstein 06:47, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Kevin Knuth

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Kevin Knuth (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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Page has recently had some edit-warring, and was discussed at WP:ANI. Looking more closely, I am uncertain that the subject is notable, and making this nomination -- please consider my !vote as a weak delete. Reasons: any notability is likely to come from WP:NPROF. The subject has a moderate number of citations, but most of the citations are from middle authorship on papers with a moderately high number of coauthors. Looking past these papers, the highest cited paper has 167 citations (in what I believe to be a higher citation field). So I'm skeptical of WP:NPROF C1. The subject is editor-in-chief of a 20-year-old journal published by MDPI, which I do not believe is well-established for WP:NPROF C8. I don't see any sign of other NPROF criteria, and I indeed think it would be a bit surprising if a long-term associate professor at University of Albany passed this criteria. The subject has an interest in WP:FRINGE UFO theories, but I don't see a GNG pass around there. It is possible that there is a good faith combined case for notability, but I am sufficiently skeptical to make this nomination. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 11:24, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 11:24, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
• Thanks for starting this discussion. I am not sure whether WP:GNG is met, but if it is, I imagine it is going to end up that the article would be mostly a WP:FRINGEBLP which is fraught. There is at least one WP:FRIND source that seems relevant for the biography, but that is rather thin to write a standalone article. Having an algorithm used by Wolfram is perhaps noteworthy, but it's also not normally the thing we would identify as justifying a standalone BLP since Wolfram tends to be pretty peripatetic when it comes to including ideas that are mathematical. jps (talk) 11:34, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
• Keep, passes WP:NACADEMIC The person has been the head or chief editor of a major, well-established academic journal in their subject area. 5Q5|^✉ 12:25, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Entropy is neither a major nor a well-established academic journal. jps (talk) 13:47, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, the only thing well-established about it is that nobody trusts it to do any quality control. XOR'easter (talk) 00:07, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Keep. Having originally authored the article, I'm clearly of the opinion that the subject achieves the requisite standard of notability. His academic papers; his career history in the round (including NASA Ames); his editorship of the Entropy journal; the Knuth Algorithm on Wolfram; and the public exposure he has attained for his willingness to publicly engage in the endeavour of scientific investigation into UAP.

I will also note - albeit this is likely outwith the scope of this discussion - that in light of the recent US governmental statements and actions pertaining to UAP (involving the US military; intelligence agencies; Congressional hearings; NASA), to regard scientific research into this subject area as "fringe" is patently absurd. Is Prof. Avi Loeb, leading Harvard University's Galileo Project, also now regarded as a fringe "pseudoscientist"? In any case, as noted, this is likely not the place for that wider discussion, however I would like to register my disappointment and strong opposition to this apparent state of affairs within the prevailing culture at Wikipedia that seems to be defining policies at present. Cosmoid (talk) 13:06, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

WP:FRINGE is well-defined as a content guideline on Wikipedia and was codified well before the recent dust-ups about UFOs. Note that it does not make any value judgement with respect to the subject material. It only outlines best practices for how to discuss fringe material. There are even clear rules for how to identify the fringe nature of a topic and the ide that "recent US governmental statements and actions" is not the standard that is used to judge whether a topic is subject to WP:FRINGE. jps (talk) 13:32, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

How is the current "mainstream" view on UAP established? The fact that US government officials have publicly confirmed that UAP *do* exist most certainly should be considered important in this regard. The scientific study of UAP is not "Fringe" - even if many of the theories as to their nature may well be defined as such. Cosmoid (talk) 14:44, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Please read WP:RGW. Until there is a big splash article published in mainstream journals that argue there is something more to UFOs than human technology, natural phenomena, hoaxes, or delusions, we are stuck at Wikipedia with following this Occam's razor approach that the scientific research community has taken towards the subject. The subtext, of course, of the present governmental interest is that there may be human technology at work here. The extraordinary arguments that there may be an explanation beyond the prosaic four is the one that requires extraordinary evidence we do not have. Wait for that Science or Nature paper, I guess, and, until then, keep reaching for those stars (just not at Wikipedia). jps (talk) 15:48, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

The "U" in UAP stands for "unidentified". A very large proportion of UAP reports are most likely resolvable to human tech, natural phenomena, hoaxes and so forth. This has already been established in numerous historical studies, both private and government. However, there is a subset that are not so readily explainable. That has been publicly acknowledged by the US government and its agencies. As you're no doubt aware, the US Congress has now passed legislation - with more coming shortly - to require US government agencies to take this matter seriously; from encouraging service personnel to file reports, to the research and investigation of those reports. For the sake of clarity: The US government has made official statements - and even passed legislation - that effectively declares that the topic of UAP should no longer be considered "fringe", with all the associated stigma that implies. Indeed, this essential point is explicitly at the heart of these initiatives, which are intended to encourage witnesses in professional positions to come forward without fear of career impacting ridicule; from military and intelligence community personnel, to civil aviation pilots, to police officers and so on.

Scientists of the likes of Kevin Knuth are pursuing what the US government has now explicitly requested of academia - to research UAP phenomena. In following the scientific method, no outcome should be assumed prior to the collection and analysis of the evidence, and nothing should be ruled out of consideration by an a priori assumption with no proven theoretical grounding. I am well aware of Occam's razor and the appeal to parsimony. However, this only applies when evaluating a set of hypotheses that fit the known facts. When you are tasked with collecting and analysing the raw data of an unexplained phenomena, you do not shrug your shoulders and say "I won't bother looking, because established wisdom dictates what can and cannot be, ergo I'll just cherrypick whichever "facts" conform to those preconceptions and ignore the rest". That approach is more akin to religion that science.

World renowned academic institutions like Harvard University are openly supporting such UAP projects. The US military and now NASA are setting up programs to explicitly study UAP. The act of engaging in the investigative processes of the topic in and of itself is no longer considered "fringe science". It is absolutely mainstream - and I am of the opinion that it's high time Wikipedia caught up with the world as it is today, rather than base policy around anachronistic sociocultural and political paradigms that should be left in the 20th century. Cosmoid (talk) 00:32, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

The problem with the argument (which is an old one) that there are "U" accounts which are "not readily explainable" is that the arguments that a particular "sighting" is "explainable" can be argued against ad infinitum. And that is typically the name of the game. The goal of the "I want to believe" enthusiast is to cast doubt on any prosaic explanation so that the conclusion they want to keep alive as a possibility is not snuffed out. This has been the name of the game for decades. The US government, thankfully, has no sway over whether a topic is subject to our WP:FRINGE guideline. We go by sources that are in compliance with WP:FRIND. So far, you might notice, the boosters of this current UAP craze do not take kindly to the mainstream critique of their arguments. It's a classic story that we see all across the WP:FRINGE spectrum. Also, when you say "world renowned academic institutions like Harvard University" what you mean to say is one astronomer has fallen off the deep end. Academic freedom means Avi can pursue whatever flights of fancy he likes. But the judgement of his colleagues is that he is barking up some very wrong trees. That's the context. Now we need to get on with figuring out how to make sure that the reader understands this. jps (talk) 01:28, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

"But the judgement of his colleagues...". You know them all personally, do you? Look, I'm sure we could argue back and forth about the UAP question all night long. However, as previously noted, this is not the place to have that broader discussion - and frankly, I have neither the inclination nor time to waste on such a pointless exercise. Cosmoid (talk) 01:44, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

• Keep I think overall the subject passes WP:GNG and 5Q5 is quite right about that journal editorship. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 13:18, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

  @Alexandermcnabb, you might want to reconsider the impact of the journal editorship, per comments below. JoelleJay (talk) 01:33, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

• Keep per above keep! votes. I found the rapid closure today of this filing regarding the subject and article creator at ANI of interest. Jusdafax (talk) 23:31, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
• Delete Entropy is an MDPI journal with a poor reputation, not the kind of flagship-of-the-field publication that the wiki-notability guideline for academics has in mind. If there's a notability case to be made here, it's not via that path. Nor do I see a path through citation counts alone, given the concerns raised above (middle authorship, having to stand out from a high-citation field). Having one's work implemented in Mathematica is nice, but hardly an indication that one has pioneered a pivotal new development; Mathematica is a big, big toolbox. So, no path to wiki-notability there. Scraping together scattered media mentions isn't a good foundation for an encyclopedia article, either. XOR'easter (talk) 00:05, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

  For what it's worth, I first heard of Knuth because of work he co-authored in quantum theory, work that was respectably published but neither a solo effort nor as influential as, e.g., Lucien Hardy's. Compare the 88 GS citations for Goyal, Knuth and Skilling (2010) to the 384 accumulated by Masanes and Müller (2011), for example, or the 650 citations to Chiribella, D'Ariano and Perinotti (2011). The raw numbers are a crude indicator, of course, but I think it is fair to say that on this topic, the work to which he contributed doesn't stand out above the field. XOR'easter (talk) 19:18, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

• Keep. Passes WP:Prof#C1 at least. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:32, 29 July 2022 (UTC).

• (EC)Comment. Entropy has a long track record of publishing junk science by unqualified "researchers". In fact, it's probably one of the journals most responsible for MDPI's poor reputation; certainly its publication of antivax[1] and anti-GMO[2] propaganda in 2012 and 2013 -- from the same quack author-- was enough to put the whole publisher on Beall's List. So I certainly wouldn't call his editorship of it an NPROF pass by any means. JoelleJay (talk) 00:47, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

  Knuth cannot be held responsible for what the publication did before he was its editor-in-chief. Cosmoid (talk) 01:28, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

  But he can be held responsible for (a) taking a position at a journal that has a history of publishing pseudoscience and (b) supporting the ongoing pseudoscience being published at that journal including a paper that he wrote himself. jps (talk) 01:31, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

  Whether or not he's "responsible" for anything, the relevant point is that only being Editor-in-Chief of a very select class of journals qualifies for the notability guideline. And Entropy is not a member of that select class. XOR'easter (talk) 02:50, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

  Those papers were published under his tenure[3] as editor-in-chief. That's part of why I singled them out. JoelleJay (talk) 06:33, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

• Delete. I was truly on the fence about this, but the discussion at WP:BLPN has swayed me. Where are the sources that document the biography of this person? Where do they account for his interest in anything, his childhood and adolescence, his personal life, his hobbies, his friends, his cultivation of a persona? I see no source that can attest to that. Mere mention of a person saying this or that isn't really good enough for us to write a biography, and we should be honest about that. Standards for inclusion should be higher here because when they are low, we end up writing either prose that is helpful to precisely no one or we turn into glorified CVs. Neither of those options seems better than just putting this part of the project away. jps (talk) 04:11, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

The above comment is irrelevant for WP:Prof, which the user should read. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:41, 29 July 2022 (UTC).

Regarding WP:Prof, under Criteria (6) it states:

"The person has held a highest-level elected or appointed administrative post at a major academic institution or major academic society".

On this point specifically: I would like to share some 'original research'. I am aware that, in the absence of a reference, the following information may not be enough to support the case in and of itself, but I'd nevertheless like to add this to the record, for what it's worth. It has come to my attention, based on a communication I received from someone associated with a member of university faculty, that Knuth has just been promoted to a full professorship. The official university website has not yet been updated, but should be by the beginning of the new semester (if the academic calendar is the same as the UK, I'm assuming September). Either way, confirmation by reliable references should hopefully be available within a matter of weeks. I'd ask that this be taken into consideration. Cosmoid (talk) 20:25, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Full professorship is irrelevant to C6, which applies to university presidents. JoelleJay (talk) 01:29, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Being that WP:Prof concerns academics ("This guideline reflects consensus about the notability of academics as measured by their academic achievements."), it seems logical that "...held a highest-level elected or appointed administrative post..." in Criteria 6 would refer to those occupying the highest academic posts within the institution - usually full professors. The word "administrative" may apply to professors, whose responsibilities invariably include a set of administrative tasks within both their departments and the institution as a whole. Cosmoid (talk) 13:34, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

If you read the details on WP:PROF, you'll find this for C6: "Lesser administrative posts (provost, dean, department chair, etc.) are generally not sufficient to qualify under Criterion 6 alone, although exceptions are possible on a case-by-case basis (e.g., being a Provost of a major university may sometimes qualify)."

Full professor is a rank, not a job, and the notability criterion for rank is "named chair or 'Distinguished Professor'", per C5. PianoDan (talk) 15:40, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

The point I am making is not about the letter of the guideline - it is about exposing those letters as self-contradictory.

As I said, the entire point of WP:Prof is defined as being about academics. In so many words it states: "This guideline reflects consensus about the notability of academics as measured by their academic achievements. An academic is someone engaged in scholarly research or higher education; academic notability refers to being known for such engagement.".

Professors within academia are generally known to others within their research domain. They lead teams of PhDs conducting academic research; they run labs (Knuth Lab, for example). Indeed, the very work depends on knowing who your peers are and what they are researching. That should amount to academic notability. That C6 then refers to administrators who may not even have followed the academic career path - yet dismisses professors who have - is contradictory and contrary to the spirit of the guideline's purpose as stated, in my view. Much like many of Wikipedia's monumental corpus of rules, regulations and guidelines. Cosmoid (talk) 11:41, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

The problem we are having here is that Wikipedia is non-innovative and aims to inform to the best of our ability according to WP:5P. Sometimes different pillars come into conflict. This is especially the case in situations where the subject is borderline or obscure. That's what we're dealing with here. You are making a case that the subject is not obscure, but the problem as I see it is that the evidence seems to indicate that he hasn't been noticed by "others within their research domain" in the way we would normally desire if we were to be complete and honest about the biography. That is my argument in toto. If you know of independent reliable sources who discuss Knuth's biographical import, please let me know. jps (talk) 18:02, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

• Delete - I don't think he quite climbs over WP:PROF on citations, and I agree that Entropy is not good enough to pass him on that criterion. If he had a bit more discussion in mainstream media for his activity, that would push him over on WP:GNG independently of WP:PROF, but... he doesn't. PianoDan (talk) 04:54, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

  Please see my reply to jps, above, specifically in relation to Criteria (6) of WP:PROF. Thanks. Cosmoid (talk) 20:49, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

.Weak delete As I see it there are three possible route for notability for Knuth, WP:PROF-C1, WP:PROF-C8, and general notability for his UFO work. I don't believe he passes C1 due to "as demonstrated by independent reliable sources". I was of the thought that he passed C8, but I don't believe Entropy quite passes well-established. It might be possible that he passes GNG in the future for his UFO work, but at the moment he doesn't quite make it in my opinion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 12:11, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

I can't understand the above comment. His work has been cited by 4672 mostly independent reliable sources. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:11, 29 July 2022 (UTC).

None of his highest-cited papers are even in his field (they're all neuropsych/neurophys, in neuropsych/neurophys journals), and he's predictably a middle author on all of them. Since he made only minor contributions to those papers, we shouldn't credit him with their success, and we certainly shouldn't describe their findings as a product of his research career (or vice versa: they shouldn't be presented as if they were a significant focus of his research). So if we shouldn't describe those papers with more than a half-sentence in his biography, they shouldn't be given much weight for C1 purposes either. JoelleJay (talk) 06:25, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

I missed this comment, but JoelleJay has said everything I would have. I was aware of those papers when I made my comment. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:09, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

• Keep because of very high citation count, and is also covered in the popular media [4][5][6][7].---Lilach5 (לילך5) discuss 06:23, 30 July 2022 (UTC)
• Delete. Per my comments above, and also: Scopus citations do not suggest Knuth passes the "average professor test", as he is below even the median for most citation metrics among his ~70 coauthors with >12 papers.

Total citations: average: 7053, median: 2593, Knuth: 2330

Total papers: 104, 62, 83

h-index: 31, 23, 20

Top 5 papers: 1st: 1025, 496, 810; 2nd: 521, 263, 206; 3rd: 337, 154, 169; 4th: 280, 140, 162; 5th: 226, 109, 103.

All of his top 5 papers are outside of his own self-described research interests, and additionally are in a field with higher citation rates than what he seems to publish in the most. Accordingly, if I censor both those papers and the citation profiles of his coauthors on those papers (most of whom were well above the median), his metrics are actually worse:

TC: 4494, 1699, 827. TP: 81, 54, 77. h: 24, 21, 14. T5: 968, 274, 70; 392, 151, 59; 250, 115, 51; 199, 100, 47; 161, 87, 45. JoelleJay (talk) 07:17, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

• Weak delete. The citation record is less impressive than it first looks: if one skips over the highly cited non-first-author work in neuroscience (an extremely high-citation-count field) he barely breaks into triple digits with his work applying Bayesian methods to physics. I'm less impressed with the editorship of an MDPI journal than I would be with one from a reputable publisher. And the UFO work is well-enough sourced to keep in the article, but not really enough for notability by itself. All that said, this could easily be a weak keep rather than a weak delete. I'm pushed over to the delete side by the ongoing WP:COATRACK problems, including recent dubious additions by User:Not the droid you're looking for and User:Cosmoid. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:47, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

  What "dubious edits" are you referring to please, David? Which edits have I made that you consider "dubious" - and why? Cosmoid (talk) 19:44, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

  Special:Diff/1100329026 is a typical example. It adds a description of Knuth's research, based only on primary sources about that research. As I wrote on the BLPN discussion, material by the subject is ok for career milestones (if not unduly self-serving) but not for opinion-based material like what the main results of his research might be. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:57, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

  That edit appears to be the introduction of the Knuth Algorithm into the article that is incorporated into Wolfram's Mathematica. Why is that "dubious"? This is exactly the kind of information that Wikipedia editors are demanding to demonstrate notability. That is why I put it in there. So again, I ask you: Why was that edit, in your words, "dubious"? Cosmoid (talk) 20:36, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

  The text is misleading (per the documentation, Mathematica offers five different binning algorithms, not just Knuth's), and it doesn't actually indicate significance (Mathematica implements many tools, sometimes just because they can). XOR'easter (talk) 22:03, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

  That still does not support your accusing my edits of being "dubious". As regards developing an algorithm used in Wolfram's Mathematica not indicating significance; so says you. Others, including myself, disagree. There was nothing "misleading" about the text - it was absolutely factual. That you see fit to deem it "insignificant" does not render the text "misleading" in and of itself. If I had written "This demonstrates that Knuth's work eclipses that of Albert Einstein in terms of its impact on the course of human history", then you may have had a point. Cosmoid (talk) 00:41, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

  Not mentioning that the "Knuth Algorithm" is only one of five options for one parameter of a software function that takes many parameters is misleading by omission. And a publication in data analysis that has less than 30 citations even by the permissive standards of Google Scholar is, indeed, insignificant. XOR'easter (talk) 04:41, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

  If Mathematica offered hundreds of alternative algorithms that produce exactly the same output, then you might have a point. As it is, you simply appear to be pronouncing as fact whatever you feel is necessary to support your unsubstantiated claim that my edits were "dubious". It should be quite obvious why the edits were made. Nobody is claiming that the Knuth Algorithm demonstrated notability in and of itself. But, it is part of a corpus of work which, in my view, does. Whether you agree with that assessment or not, to label the edits "dubious" is non-collegial and appears contrary to WP:AGF. Cosmoid (talk) 11:49, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

• Delete. If it weren't for the subject's activity in ufology, he'd be just another non-notable academic. Knuth is best known for advocacy of the notion that a number of UFOs reported by the military are likely extraterrestrial in origin, UFO skepticism is bad, and we should fund serious research to get evidence of ET in our skies. His Newsweek opinion piece and The Conversation piece have gotten rehashed all over the media landscape [8], [9], [10], often with click-bait headlines about governments hiding evidence of aliens. Knuth is also active on the paranormal entertainment circuit: Open Minds UFO Radio, Phenomenon Radio, Radio Misterioso, My Alien Life, Podcast UFO, Night Dreams Talk Radio, Coast To Coast AM, and Utah's paranormal Conference, Phenomenon ("We Believe"). Knuth's "ex NASA scientist says UFOs aliens" schtick definitely got attention, but only the WP:SENSATIONAL kind: his extraordinary claims are merely reported in media outlets with zero expert analysis or critique. Since his WP:FRINGE ideas (and not his rather unremarkable academic career) are the sole focus of media coverage, we don't have the kind of serious, in-depth 3rd party biographical information we'd need to construct a neutral BLP. Until we do, Knuth and his claims are best given a few lines in Ufology or UFO conspiracy theories. BTW, I found circumstances of the article's creation by a single purpose account of interest: after their article on the UAPx organization was deleted their next step was to create this resume-like bio of the organization's VP. - LuckyLouie (talk) 19:55, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

  Firstly, LuckieLouie, the article in question about UAPx was not deleted - as a cursory glance at the AfD decision should inform you. It was moved to the Draft namespace, pending additional secondary source references becoming available.

  Secondly, define "they". I am not a member of UAPx. I am someone who has followed and supported their work and believes in their mission to collect and analyse raw UAP data using the scientific method with a view to furthering understanding of UAP phenomena, whatever they may be.

  Thirdly, whilst you might imagine yourself to be Wikipedia's Sherlock Holmes, that someone with the aforementioned interests might be motived to write an article about a notable professor who is brave enough to put their head above the parapet, conduct research and speak out about a subject that has for so long been subject to ridicule, should be of no surprise to you.

  I have been absolutely transparent about my interest in the UAP topic and the small subset of scientists, engineers and other professionals who are gutsy enough to put their public reputations on the line and actually do the research. Those involved with UAPx, Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies, The Galileo Project, Sky360 and others are actually trying to do the scientific investigative work to collect and analyse evidence, as opposed to sitting on their arses pompously yabbering ad infinitum about the inability to seriously hypothesise about the nature of anomalous phenomena due to ... you guessed it; lack of evidence.

  So yes, I have an interest. As do most people, I'd assume, who take time out of their day to write articles for Wikipedia about subjects within their domain of interest that they regard as important and notable. If that makes me somehow befitting of Wikipedia blackballing, fine. Go ahead. Do your worst. Cosmoid (talk) 00:18, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

UFO/UAP data collection and analysis by the DOD/Intel is now the official policy and law of the United States government. So a scientist like Knuth's interest in the topic is not automatically disqualifying as fringe as it was in the past. Lots of skeptics with Wikipedia bios have also appeared in "sensational" media over the years. 5Q5|^✉ 14:20, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

UFO/UAP data collection and analysis by the DOD/Intel is now the official policy and law of the United States government. So a scientist like Knuth's interest in the topic is not automatically disqualifying as fringe as it was in the past. That's not how this works. We follow WP:FRINGE, not some vision of how the US government policy legitimizes investigations. jps (talk) 08:42, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Here are three additional references to Knuth's UAP related notability:

- Article & interview on Texas Public Radio: https://www.tpr.org/science-technology/2021-06-18/physicist-takes-a-serious-look-at-unidentified-aerial-phenomena

- Article in UK press: https://metro.co.uk/2018/06/30/ex-nasa-scientist-says-aliens-exist-encounters-covered-governments-7672163/

- Interview on WAMC Northeast Public Radio: https://www.wamc.org/podcast/vox-pop/2022-05-11/uap-ufo-tic-tacs-what-can-science-tell-us-5-11-22

I also have links to 5 published (not self-published) academic books (non-UAP related), authored either solely by Knuth (2), or in collaboration with other authors (3), however I assume these would not be useful references owing them being primary sources (hence I did not include them). That said, they do, I feel, add yet further weight to the argument that Knuth is a notable presence with his academic domain. That, combined with his activity within the field of scientifically grounded UAP investigation - for which he is notable for having combined an established academic career with longstanding public engagement in that discourse - provide ample grounds for his inclusion in Wikipedia, in my opinion. Cosmoid (talk) 12:48, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

@Cosmoid: if you have authored books with independent reviews in reliable sources, then the reviews can help contribute towards notability. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 13:02, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Just a note that interviews do not contribute to notability unless they include very substantial independent secondary analysis/commentary about the interviewee by the author. JoelleJay (talk) 17:16, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

• Keep per the above Keep! votes. I see plenty of votes for Keep, several calling for weak delete, no shortage of straw man arguments, and a few outright fallacies. Jusdafax rightfully calls to attention the repeated lapses in judgment demonstrated by jps on the subject page, Talk page, and the rapid closure of the filing regarding the subject and article creator at ANI. Depending on how you choose to define academic field, subject qualifies under WP:GNG, WP:PROF#C1, and WP:PROF#C7. In contrast to above statement dismissing subject as “a long-term associate professor,” Knuth was recently promoted to the rank of full professor. There's additional third-party coverage about the article subject as a person available at links that haven’t even been incorporated into the article yet: it was only a barebones skeleton effort just getting off the ground when this childish edit-warring began due to the religious fervency of the topic and willful disbelief from either side to see the perspective of the other. Cosmoid's authorship of the article represents one of the first attempts by a young editor to make a positive contribution, yet all sorts of critical opprobrium is being indiscriminately tossed about in shotgun approach for a variety of invalid reasons including lack of familiarity with “The Art of Wikipedia Weeding” that should be not only expected, but welcomed and encouraged. We weren’t all born spouting Wiki markup syntax and WP:SHORTCUTS. WP:AGF.

Of particular note is the willfully incoherent blatant mischaracterization by jps: “When you say "world renowned academic institutions like Harvard University what you mean to say is one astronomer has fallen off the deep end. Academic freedom means Avi can pursue whatever flights of fancy he likes. But the judgement of his colleagues is that he is barking up some very wrong trees.” I count the endorsement of some sixty of his colleagues in this group photo, which represents only about two-thirds of the membership. The Galileo Project counts close to 100 Harvard University researchers and affiliates with the project, many of them top scientists in their respective fields. The Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies counts upwards of 200 formal subject matter experts among its invitation-only membership, with well over 400 scientists and engineers attending its last annual meeting in June. This is not “one astronomer who has fallen off the deep end.” UAPx counts close to half a dozen tenured PhD astrophysicists as core members. Dozens more including DOE national labs distinguished research fellows contribute to the nonprofit from the wings, yet choose to remain anonymous precisely because of the stigma brought to fore from the skeptics, many of whom remain blissfully unaware of the contemporary body of evidence that has led to an immediate about-face and historically unprecedented legislation from the Congress, the IC, and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. This deletion review itself is the elephant in the room and case in point front and center as a prominent example of such lingering stigma.

Notably, neither the Wikipedia entries for Avi Loeb or Garry Nolan nor Christopher Mellon sees any of them labeled as ufologist, a term which represents blatant mischaracterization and historical stigma when intentionally misapplied. Knuth is employed as a tenured university professor who leads his own research group and is responsible for millions of dollars in federal grants from NSF et al. He is no more 'ufologist' than any of the aforementioned examples. Yet whether Avi numbers 1 or 10 or 100 Harvard scientists, and whether UAP prove to be completely mundane, natural phenomena, time traveling teapots in the orbit of Jupiter, or momentary imaginings of a Boltzmann brain bears no impact on the merit or suitability of Knuth's notability or suitability for entry. The question of whether Knuth or Avi Loeb are “entirely off the deep end in the eyes of their colleageues” is neither here nor there, and has only entered into this conversation as a farcical pretense and red herring.

In regards to Cosmoid's referenced statement, WP:FRINGE/ALT is not any sort of automatic disqualification. Historically now-mainstream topics that were once considered fringe include continental drift before the discovery of plate tectonics, the existence of Troy, the Norse colonization of the Americas, and the Big Bang Theory. Academic investigation of sprites, jets, ELVES, trolls, pixies, ghosts, and gnomes, ball lightning, St. Elmo's fire, and the Hessdelen lights were all at one time in the realm of UAP, yet no one would call research into these topics pseudoscientific in nature. Fundamental analysis of the flight characteristics and radar cross-section characteristics of the tic-tac in the USS Nimitz incident are equally straightforward and by no means deserving of premature dismissal as pseudoscience. Just because a field was historically considered fringe doesn't mean that it will be in the future, nor is any study into what may or may not be historically considered to be a part of that field itself necessarily pseudoscience. Yet all of this is neither here nor there when the question is one of notability, not acting as self-appointed intellectual internet police on a crusade to protect the sanctity of the vaunted halls of knowledge from the hordes of unwashed masses and infidels at the gates, whether such characterization holds water of not. — 🤖 Not the droid you're looking for (talk) 08:22, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Is there a link available showing Knuth is now a full professor? 5Q5|^✉ 10:57, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Note that WP:NPROF criteria 5 is for a named chair appointment or distinguished professor appointment, being a professor would not pass the criteria. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:14, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

This is correct. The "full professor" title does not mean a pass of any of the wiki-notability-for-academics criteria. XOR'easter (talk) 17:58, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

This is important. "Full Professor" is simply the third step in the tenure and promotion process, after "Assistant Professor" and "Associate Professor." If it conferred notability, there would be tens of thousands more academics suddenly eligible for articles. It does not. "Distinguished Professor" and "Named Chair" are NOT the same thing. PianoDan (talk) 22:18, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

I think everyone knows they're not the same thing, PianoDan. It is nevertheless absurd that a University President should qualify for academic notability when they may not even have followed an academic career path (and often haven't), whilst there is even a question over the academic notability of a Full Professor like Dr. Knuth, who has over 100 papers & several books published in the academic literature and runs his own research lab. Cosmoid (talk) 23:50, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Feel free to take that up on the NPROF talk page. I'll note that at one point I did investigate university presidents' academic pedigrees (55+ people, chosen by looking at the current president of every other university a given president had attended/worked at) and was surprised to find most of them had strong scholarly profiles. Almost all of them had been profs, and a large proportion appeared to additionally meet NPROF through citations/named chairs. These were mostly R1 universities, however. JoelleJay (talk) 00:24, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

• Weak delete I think there are a few criteria the subject almost meets, like C1 and C7. I find the analysis by JoelleJay convincing: he's less-cited than his co-authors (with a reasonable cut-off of having 12 papers published), so doesn't meet C1. I would like to see more of his impact to satisfy C7: a few quotations in the press is relatively common for academics. Femke (talk) 18:09, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

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.