Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Unsolved problems in biology

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 ambiguous.

This discussion never reached concensus. From the edit history, the discussion is no longer current. I am closing the discussion as an administrative clean-up activity. If anyone feels that this decision should be revisited, please create it as a new nomination. Rossami (talk) 20:27, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If this page is going to exist, shouldn't we remove the questions that do have answers? Here is my short list:

Why is it necessary for mammals to sleep? Or dream, come to that? - plenty of answers to this one
What is consciousness? - plenty of answers to this from a biological standpoint but the real questions don't belong here but in metaphysical
Do the genomes of all animals link together? - I could swear there is a complete tree of all animals that answers this already.

- Texture 20:15, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Are they really solved problems? I'm not sure about the sleep thing ... and consciousness and genomes are iffy as to being "solved" .... mabey more research could help to see if these are "settled" ...

I think there is still a general debate on those points (but I could be wrong) ...

"plenty of answers" isn't reason to remove the points ... there are "plenty of answers" to the physics questions, but they are still unsolved ...

Sincerely, JDR [PS. I tried to reformat the pg to reflect the frmt of the otehr like pages]

Q #6 (animal genomes) needs to be clarified or removed. If it means what I think it means (do all animals have a common ancestor?), then this isn't much of an unanswered Q. There is lots of evidence to support the idea that there was one common ancestor. Of course there is more work to do in this area, but I wouldn't consider it one of the 'big mysteries' of biology.ike9898 21:58, Feb 26, 2004 (UTC)

Why is it necessary for mammals to sleep? Or dream, come to that? - plenty of answers to this one I'm sure you're right. Would it be appropriate to make an article on "why mammals sleep" or "why mammals dream" (why we dream?) in the Wikipedia? ... I was pretty sure that at least some non-mammals also sleep ... DavidCary 04:43, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Just a response to above, I think that should simply be covered in the "dreaming" article as opposed to being seperate.

From the VFD page:

What are "solved" problems? Hmm: How is ATP made, what does the Golgi apparatus do, how are proteins made, what is the structure of DNA, why is that inert stuff DNA present in cells in such large quantity, what is the thymus for, can organs ever be transplanted between two members of the same species; or for bigger questions: is conciousness in the heart, liver, or brain; are viruses dead or alive; do species evolve; what is the function of oxygen. Kd4ttc 02:43, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

My rambling thoughts on this, not posted on VFD

Touché. I'm just being argumentative for the pleasure of it, but it seems to me that during my lifetime the function of the thymus has always been known, it's just that the supposedly known function has changed from decade to decade. I'm not sure that "are viruses dead or alive" is a meaningful question, nor do I happen to know what the current answer is said to be. In junior high school, of course, our biology teacher listed the "seven requirements of life" and one of them was "excrete urea," which got a suppressed giggle... I don't believe most viruses do that, so I suppose the question was settled. To the question "do species evolve" the answer is yes, pacé William Jennings Bryan, but any less trivial questions about how they evolve remain open. Finally, it seems to me that several of your problems are straw men in the sense that you have only defined them as problems because they've been solved. "Can organs ever be transplanted" would be one of those. Nor do I think there was a lot of angst surrounding the question "how is ATP made;" I doubt that this was recognized as an important problem until the point at which it was in the process of being solved. By the way, when I was a kid, the continents did not drift. I don't mean that we didn't know that they drifted. I'll buy the brain as the seat of consciousness, but is there an open question about the locus of the soul? Dpbsmith 13:58, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I appreciate the kind rejoinder. Yeah, I took the easy way out and didn't say soul. As a Gastroenterologist I am probably biased, but in France the Liver may well be the answer. I picked the virus issue because when I was in Junior High in the late 1960's it was a very important question. What is interesting to me about it was that the question became unasked as the biology of viruses was better understood over time. One of my patient's this week asked if she had celiac disease but was on the diet she still had celiac disease is used the example of the viurs life question to answer hers: now that she understood the disease it was within her to contemplate the full complexity of the situation without feeling the need to have a simplistic answer. Organ transplantation was a big issue back before it was shown possible, and the discovery of cyclosporin was a big part of it. The ATP debate was HUGE, if you were a biochemist. Excreting urea is a pretty poor defintion of life as bacteria and small life forms, like hmm BIRDS, don't excrete urea.

What do they excrete, then? Uric acid, isn't it? Pretty darn close, I'd say.

What is interesting about the virus issue is that the answer to that life question was dissipated gradually, other questions were answered quickly. As we advance in knowledge, we forget what the questions were, so there was not a straw man quality. For example, DNA was well known a major constiuent of cells, but it was thought to be chemically inert, and biologists knew that couldn't be right. It seems some answers are obtained by gradual osmosis with a fade of the question, others get answers. Kd4ttc 02:47, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

And remember... protoplasm? Good old "protoplasm!" Don't you miss "protoplasm." Oh, the dictionary says it still exists—it means cytoplasm and nucleoplasm—but it used to be thought that it actually meant something, that it was some kind of fundamental life-stuff. The nonsense answer to many difficult questions. And remember the once-debated question of whether protozoans, oops, I mean protista, were unicellular or, in fact acellular? Because there was a better homology between a protozoan, oops I mean protist, and an entire multicellular animal, than between a protozoan and any single cell in the multicellular animal. No less an authority than Libbie Hyman weighed in on the "acellular" side. I discussed this once with some young biologists and they just blanked out. They couldn't process the question. It wasn't that they didn't agree with Hyman, it was that they simply couldn't assign any meaning to the concept of something being "acellular." Even slime molds... Dpbsmith 03:10, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I like the idea of sharing with folks who have not pondered some of the larger questions of biology. Many sientific textbooks in early years read like everything is understood. How quaint. But it is of use to understand that science has questions at many levels. Even discussion of is it biology is enlightening to those not scientifically inclined. Kd4ttc

Talk:Unsolved problems in biology has itself revealed a major unsolved problem in biology: how to get more biologists to recognize the importance of clearly identifying and discussing unsolved problems in biology. Maybe Wikibooks is a better place to try to be "enlightening". JWSchmidt 15:37, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"Is intelligence affected by the geomagnetic field?"

The view that this is an unsolved problem in biology is idiosyncratic. I'm removing it. -- WOT 20:32, 7 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Votes for Deletion

Unsolved problems in biology - the questions posed are not well-known (e.g. not the biological equivalent of Hilbert's problems), are not a recognized list, are not particularly insightful, are effectively a sort of essay on what the author believes to be relevant, hence POV and "original research." Dpbsmith 17:23, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Delete - agree with above - Texture 17:47, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- delete - Yes, looks like something made up on the spot by the user. --Obli 18:47, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Keep. questions posed are not well-known? Then they would seem to be unsolved wouldn't they? recognized list? Looks like a compliation stub ... google 21,300 : 198 [nonliteral : literal] ... not particularly insightful? YMMV on that ... effectively a sort of essay? Again YMMV on that ... POV? Nope ... also it's not a type original research that should be exclude (ie., "Specific factual content is not the question") ... I'm not sure if it was "made up on the spot", but a bit of research and copyedting should solve that ... JDR 19:10, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Keep. -A stub that could be developed.Pollinator 19:53, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Keep, could develop into something like the IMO quite useful Unsolved problems in physics. -- Cyan 20:06, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Keep. Could add a lot more ideas here. Let it develop for a year and revisit. Stephen Holland, M.D. (I'm adding sex to the list)Kd4ttc 20:14, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- FYI- if you follow the link it appears that this page is just an advert for a general website. - Texture 20:16, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)
  - YMMV on that .. there is a search engine in the website to look for "odd" things [read: unsolved issues] (bio stuff being just one) [FYI, I put the link in ... AND I have no connection to the site] ... JDR
- Delete. Most problems in science aren't 'solved' or 'unsolved', they're somewhere in-between. ike9898 22:01, Feb 26, 2004 (UTC)
  - Amen to that... one of the things that was bothering me about this page was: what would be the list of solved problems in biology? Dpbsmith 00:09, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
    - Solved problems go in the biology article. JDR 13:57, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  - What are "solved" problems? Hmm: How is ATP made, what does the Golgi apparatus do, how are proteins made, what is the structure of DNA, why is that inert stuff DNA present in cells in such large quantity, what is the thymus for, can organs ever be transplanted between two members of the same species; or for bigger questions: is conciousness in the heart, liver, or brain; are viruses dead or alive; do species evolve; what is the function of oxygen. Kd4ttc 02:43, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Delete. If someone of the status in biology that David Hilbert had in mathematics were to compile such a list, then yes, that would be useful. But I doubt they would, given the nature of the subject. Meantime, this is an interesting project, but not a suitable article for Wikipedia. Andrewa 02:55, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
  - Actually... if I recall correctly... does anyone have a copy of James Watson's book The Molecular Biology of the Gene? I think it was that book... the introduction to which contains a statement that has stuck in my mind for decades because of its monumental arrogance. He says that molecular biology, and only molecular biology, is capable of answering the big unsolved problems of biology, and procedes to list a few. Among them are the cause of cancer, and how the ability to think arises from the structure of the central nervous system. Does anyone want to look 'em up and enumerate them as The Watson Problems? Dpbsmith 14:02, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Keep and see where it goes. Wikipedia is about knowledge and asking questions like these is the way that knowledge expands. Perhaps we should have a general compendium of unanswered, unsolved but significant questions. I know Wikipedia is not about original research but research is what most people will use it for. Also consider another long unsolved problem, Fermat's last theorem, and its significance in the history of mathematics. Unsolved problems are important. ping 07:21, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
- Delete. silsor 21:19, Mar 2, 2004 (UTC)
- Delete - not encyclopediac! Muriel 13:20, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Delete - unscientific. Nothing in science is actually "solved" afterall - they are just hypotheses. Secretlondon 22:31, 4 Mar 2004 (UTC)
  - So how, then, would you define a scientific law? Xeresblue
    - (Making this up as I go along) An important hypothesis that a) has been subjected to intensive and widespread testing and hasn't been disproven yet; b) is found in textbooks; and c) (if applicable) is used by engineers for practical purposes where lives and money depend on the outcome. Of course it's more complicated than that. Many scientific "laws" are really definitions. For example, consider "Ohm's law." It is really a definition of the term resistance. Some things "obey Ohm's law," some don't. For those that do, it is meaningful to characterize them with a "resistance." Newton's three "laws of motion" have a similar flavor. Anyhoo... science procedes by disproof. Nothing is ever proven, things are only disproven. At least, someone I knew said their science teacher said that he had read somewhere a book review that said Karl Popper said that. Dpbsmith 23:38, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
      - Many scientific "laws" are really definitions (or model descriptions). For example, consider various established "Laws and Theories". It is really a definition of the term duality. Godel and de Broglie both stated this. Most things "obey wave-particle duality". For those that do, it is meaningful to characterize them with a "quantity." YMMV on the "Nothing is ever proven," Experiments and obeservation only disprove and prove things, as far as I can precieve. JDR 13:14, 27 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- Keep - the fact that there is already so much discussion about it, proves that this page is meaningful. JoJan 18:48, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)JoJan

Keep. I agree nothing is really solved but for people interested in biology it's an interesting page.

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.