Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/B. Roy Frieden

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:{{la|1=B. Roy Frieden}} – (View AfDView log | edits since nomination)

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Credulous article about fringe physicist, that cites a huge number of his works. The only independent source is a review of his book, which concludes that it is "fundamentally flawed in both its overall concept and mathematical detail. It cannot be read as a textbook providing a valid approach to physics." That is simply not enough to establish notability. Tercer (talk) 09:23, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Tercer (talk) 09:23, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• Remove, not enough sources to attest notability, also WP:BLP indicates that we should be stricter here.--ReyHahn (talk) 09:50, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• Keep: and stubify. Frieden is an emeritus professor which satisfies WP:NPROF#C5. Best, Reading Beans, Duke of Rivia 11:25, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• :Being emeritus is certainly not enough to satisfy C5. Tercer (talk) 12:28, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• ::What do you consider a distinguished professor appointment? Reading Beans, Duke of Rivia 15:14, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• :::Distinguished professor is a specific title, which Frieden doesn't have. It has nothing to be with being emeritus. Tercer (talk) 16:37, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• :To clarify, Emeritus is a $0 faculty appointment. This provides access to electronic resources and maybe a few other perks. It has to be approved by the admin, but is not (and should not) be considered as "distinguished". Ldm1954 (talk) 17:03, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• :I agree with the above comments to the effect that an "emeritus" title is not enough for WP:PROF#C5. It's another way of saying "old", not another way of saying "distinguished". XOR'easter (talk) 19:38, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• ::"Silver-haired" please, not "old". Ldm1954 (talk) 22:35, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• ::Anyways, thank you all for the clarification but David said something below which I actually agree with. Best, Reading Beans, Duke of Rivia 22:38, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• ::It’s actually a way of saying “this person provided service that was valued by the institution during their career.” It’s an honor from the institution, a career achievement award. It does give the professor done minor benefits but it also allows the institution to continue to associate itself with prominent scholars following their retirement, which they benefit from. Is it a named chair? Almost never. Does it count towards notability as a standalone? No, not by itself. Yes, it’s an honor, and in the big picture it may help to establish NPROF. It’s also an honor which a university can choose to withdraw from the recipient with sufficient cause. Qflib (talk) 16:03, 6 February 2025 (UTC)
• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Mathematics, Arizona, and New York. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 11:43, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

:The article is clearly in need of improvement, especially the excessive publication list and the lack of external sources. I think the labeling as "fringe scientist" may not be fair to the career as a whole: from what I see he made respectable mainstream contributions in optical physics over decades and also the investigations into the the role of information in physics is not "fringe" (cf. Wheeler, It from bit). He has over 160 peer-reviewed publications according to Clarivate (two of them with more than 500 citations) with an h index of 30 ([https://www.webofscience.com/wos/woscc/citation-report/1802cdf8-ecef-4673-87df-e8a78ef494bb-014743082b citation report]). Among him non-peer reviewed publications are three books: {{doi|10.1007/978-3-642-56699-8}} (which saw 3 editions and was called "[https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0957-0233/13/9/703 a true classic]" by a reviewer), {{doi|10.1017/CBO9780511622670}}, the one criticized in the article, which has also [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=%22Physics+from+Fisher+information%22&btnG= around 500 citation on Scholar]. I tried to find a review of his latest book Science from Fisher information {{doi|10.1017/CBO9780511616907}} and, while coming up empty, I noticed that it was fairly frequently cited also in what I consider reputable publications: Google Scholar shows [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=science+from+fisher+information&btnG= over 600 citations].

:I wanted to bring some data to this discussion; I'm undecided regarding deletion (having little experience with how WP:Notability_(academics) are applied here - in de.WP, he would very likely be considered "relevant", but I think the standards there are too lenient). --Qcomp (talk) 17:21, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

::The general idea of applying information theory in physics is not fringe. B. Roy Frieden's specific proposal for doing so has gone nowhere. By analogy, the idea that life might exist on other planets is scientifically mainstream, but particular manifestations of that idea — e.g., claiming to have found fossils in Moon rocks, or that COVID-19 came from a passing comet — can still be fringe. {{pb}} Those "over 600 citations" include preprints, garbage journals, and passing mentions that only cite the book for the definition of Fisher information. XOR'easter (talk) 19:44, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

:::I agree that the 600 citations in Scholar do not mean much (though, I guess, many "fringe scientists" would be happy to get that much attention). The number was not meant to say anything about the correctness of his work, but that it hasn't gone unnoticed. Most citations that I looked at either cite it for some basic definition related to Fisher info or for the general idea that information plays an important role in physics. The most substantial citations seem the ones by Steven Frank (biologist), who credits Frieden with motivating his use of Fisher information in evolution: {{doi|10.1111/j.1420-9101.2008.01647.x}} (without endorsing his work in physics).
My objection to the term "fringe" has more to to with the decades preceding the work on information and physics. I've added two lines about his apparently pioneering work in optics (citing two review works which mention him as one of the pioneers in each of the two) and one in image restoration. I have no insight myself into how important these contributions were, but the first two have 150 citations each (which is not bad for an article from the 1960s, I think) and the third over 500 (by Clarivate, not Scholar) and all are mentioned decades later in review articles on the respective subject. --Qcomp (talk) 23:07, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

• Strong Keep and improve. If you go to his [https://wp.optics.arizona.edu/rfrieden/ CV] you will see that he is a Fellow of both OSA and SPIE (also AAAS but I discount that). That is enough for WP:NPROF#C3. I did not count in detail, but his work has enough citations that I believe he passes #C1 as well. Cut the bibliography to 10 papers, add the major awards and trim the less reliable information. It would be good to also add something about his earlier work which appears to be considered by the wider community as notable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ldm1954 (talk • contribs)
• Keep. Fellow of Optica and SPIE (and AAAS) should be enough for WP:PROF#C3, and he also appears to pass WP:PROF#C1. His historical role in the early history of laser beam shaping is well attested in the published literature. The book and its criticism are a sidelight that should be discussed but should not be the focus of this article. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:44, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• Comment I have removed the "Work on Fisher information in physics" section for being credulous, promotional, in violation of policy, and generally beneath the dignity of an encyclopedia. XOR'easter (talk) 19:49, 5 February 2025 (UTC)
• Comment – though technically fellowship at Optica (OSA) might serve as a point of notability, does this merit a stub if we may have little else to say in it? —Quondum 18:38, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
• :His early work was definitely notable. Hopefully there is someone who has worked in optics who can add a bit to the stub. Ldm1954 (talk) 19:19, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
• :: Fair enough – I see there is already mention of that, basically justifying the stub status. Does he warrant a mention in the History section of Principle of maximum entropy? I remember it being referred to as the "maximum entropy method" for noise reduction in image reconstruction back in my university days, and being intrigued but never mustering the energy to go into it in depth. —Quondum 19:52, 8 February 2025 (UTC)
• :::I don't think he should be mentioned in Principle of maximum entropy: there are many applications discussed in that article and usually no names are mentioned on who first thought about using the principle for a given task. --Qcomp (talk) 15:04, 9 February 2025 (UTC)
• Keep. As others have written the fellowships satisfy WP:PROF. Espresso Addict (talk) 11:48, 9 February 2025 (UTC)

{{clear}}

: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.