Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Selective recruitment

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. Merges can be performed without needing to go through AfD. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 11:25, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Selective recruitment

Idiosyncratic definition of a well enough documented scientific term, largely based on a self-published book written by the author of this article, and apaprently part of a selt promotion campaign. Just zis Guy you know? 11:32, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• Redirect to seat belt legislation and give it a brief mention there. The term has been mentioned by the National Institute of Health and some university websites. -- Kjkolb 15:08, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The term was first introduced in the peer-reviewed paper by L. Evans "Human behavior feedback and traffic safety." Human Factors 27: 555-576; 1985. This is a much-cited paper in the professional traffic safety literature. The effect is discussed in the 1991 book by Evans "Traffic Safety and the Driver". Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1991. (ISBN 0442001630) and more briefly in the same author's 2004 book "Traffic Safety (ISBN 0975487108). More briefly because the whole point about science is that more data and understanding settles once-controversial issues. Nearly all of the many citations are from the paper-only era not available for internet searching.

The main article on "Traffic Safety" has three suggestions for further reading. One of the three "Death on the Streets: Cars and the mythology of road safety" is nothing more than a political tract. The book is owned by 11 US libraries listed in Library World Cat (http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/open/default.htm), compared to 158 and 133 for the two Evans books mentioned above. It has just one Appendix -- a long one denouncing Evans as a spokesman for the safety establishment. Although I deny the charge -- surely an encyclopedia is supposed to convey the current state of main-stream knowledge.

I suggest that this item provides some modest counterbalance to the host of unfounded claims and explanations claimed effects (rejected by the traffic safety profession). Deleting this and everything now relating to traffic safety and starting again might make more sense than deleting just this one item.

My own articles in Encyclopedia Britannica, American Scientist and the like provide a reasonable summary of what science has taught us about the subject. What is now in Wikopedia is the stuff of First Amendment Rights (which I support vigorously), but it has no place in an encyclopedia. Leonard Evans Levanszzzz 23:55, 13 July 2006 (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.