Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cultural evolution

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 keep. I think there is a consensus here to keep this article. That's all that I'm sure about. What happens next--Merger, Rename, Redirect--is left to the editors here to discuss on the article talk page. However, if nothing is done, I think this article will be renominated in the near future. Good luck. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:20, 3 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Cultural evolution[edit]

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TL;DR would be that this is a fork of sociocultural evolution, and that there are no reliable sources that support differentiating the concept of "cultural evolution" from "sociocultural evolution". The article was created by experts (see Talk:Sociocultural_evolution#Merge_Cultural_evolution_and_Cultural_selection_theory_here for context and short discussion), sadly, they gave up early, before finishing this. Worse, they effectively created what read back then and still does as a fork of our older article, with significant overlaps in content. The article states (without a ref) that "Cultural evolution, historically also known as sociocultural evolution", which still implies it's the same topic, but that the name "cultural evolution" is more commonly used than "sociocultural evolution" (perhaps). I suggested a merge, but the discussion never went far (link above). As there is some content to merge, I'd like to suggest reviewing this deletion discussion as a "forced merge", with the suggested result of, well, merge, and the use of relevant template (not Template:Merge from AfD, but I can't find the one that is used to indicate merge outcome of AfD; if you know which one it is, please add it to the relevant templates list there). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:59, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Social science-related deletion discussions. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:59, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the deletion warning. Yes, the differentia need to be explicit. I am referring this to the Cultural Evolution Society, said experts who created this page, as they are best placed to make the distinction. AndySLord (talk) 17:36, 6 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, ✗plicit 12:28, 13 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: A merge seems reasonable, but it sounds like the name should probably be Cultural evolution, not Sociocultural evolution. The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy has Cultural evolution but not the other. Lijil (talk) 16:02, 16 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Supporting Lijil, I looked for the topic "Cultural evolution", "Sociocultural" never would occur to me. Cgmusselman (talk) 08:34, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment to comment. The term cultural evolution is much more common, yes. I've no objection to the merge being targed there, as long as redirects persist, and the less common name is mentioned in the lead. Although one should take a look at the alt names, definitions, and such, in the lead of Sociocultural evolution. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:54, 18 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting. It's unclear to me what the suggestion is, what page is being merged into which page?
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:46, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

With regard to the discussion on the talkpage from 2017, I find the contribution from @Joe Roe: quite convincing as a non-specialist. I don't know the solution, but it seems better to thrash it out on the talkpages of the respective articles than here on AfD. JMWt (talk) 07:46, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but yeah, do something. Thanks for the ping JMWt. Like I tried to explain back then, the current school of cultural evolution and historic theories of sociocultural evolution (in reality more likely called "social evolution" or "cultural evolution", but we have it there per WP:NATDIS) are two very distinct intellectual traditions, that basically only share a name. Both are notable; for the current school of cultural evolution theory, see e.g. [1][2][3]. I agree that the article is not in good shape. The attempt by a group of experts to write the article was basically a failure, serving only to attract people unfamiliar with our policies and a tendency to write overly technical prose that makes it difficult for most people to understand what is being talked about. But as always that is not a reason to remove an article on a notable and encyclopaedic topic. If we're going to merge this article with anything, it should be with dual inheritance theory and/or cultural selection theory, which are actually about related topics, not just ones sharing the same name. Or, as a very belated reply to Piotrus (sorry, don't know what happened there), I think moving it and making the title cultural evolution a disambiguation page is also a good idea. – Joe (talk) 08:43, 20 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

While you make an interesting argument, the admin or editor who closes this discussion has a limited range of possible options available to them and this discussion is as clear as mud. Can you sum up what you think should happen with this specific article in 5 words or less? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:53, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Keep" :) – Joe (talk) 07:05, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Joe Roe Moving it where? What article and to what name? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:18, 30 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Cultural evolution somewhere, as you suggested in 2017. I don't think there's an obvious WP:NATDIS and ... maybe Darwinian cultural evolution? It's not exactly the common name, but is used by these sources for example: [4][5][6]. Cultural evolution (disambiguation) already exists, by the way, so it'd just be a case of swapping the titles. – Joe (talk) 11:31, 31 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Final relist. There is lots of discussion but we need simple outcome opinions that a closer can carry out here. If this article is Kept, then you can make editing choices to carry out your vision of what this article should be.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:57, 27 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep based on the above analyses (which I will trust more than my own muddled understanding of the historical antecedents). Sounds as if some artful renaming and disambiguating could sort out the title overlap, and then the article could be overhauled on the hoof. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:07, 1 November 2022 (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.