Talk:biological weapon

RFD discussion: March–May 2021

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for deletion (permalink).

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biological weapon

Link: biological weapon

As far as I can tell, this entry and all of the others listed afterwards seem to be equivalent to the sum of their parts. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 18:40, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

biological-weapon

• Delete, just attributive like "once-daily" medication. Facts707 (talk) 14:51, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

chemical weapon

atomic weapon

nuclear weapon

thermonuclear weapon

radiological weapon

crew-served weapon

• ?? crew-served weapon, just a weapon served by a crew? Facts707 (talk) 14:54, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

In general

• Delete biological-weapon as an unnecessary attributive form; keep all the rest, none of which is readily understandable just from knowing what each of the adjectives means in isolation. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:19, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
• In ancient Egypt and Greece, snakes were supposedly sometimes used to execute criminals. Is a snake a biological weapon? If I sic my dog on you, have I attacked you with a biological weapon? That one is certainly more than SoP. Colin M (talk) 04:01, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
  • Good point, you've convinced me on biological weapon. Following similar reasoning I think "chemical weapon" and "radiological weapon" should be kept. I guess my criticism for the nuke terms is that our definitions aren't specific to any type of weapon that harnesses nuclear reactions. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 19:21, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
    • FWIW, the first line of wiki's article on Nuclear weapon uses a more specific definition than what we have currently ("A nuclear weapon (also called an atom bomb, nuke, atomic bomb, nuclear warhead, A-bomb, or nuclear bomb) is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions,"). Though the distinction may be moot given the non-existence of any other sorts of weapons which are nuclear. Maybe nuclear submarines could count, though I don't know if it's conventional to call a military submarine a weapon. Colin M (talk) 22:38, 6 March 2021 (UTC)
      • We have radiological weapon which is not a nuclear weapon (does not depend on nuclear reactions for explosive force), but does depend on nuclear reactions (nuclear decay) for its deadliness. So, is Wiktionary's "nuclear weapon" (fission/fusion weapon) not distinguished from nuclear decay weapons (radiological)? -- 65.93.183.33 00:51, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
• I would probably keep all. SemperBlotto (talk) 07:33, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Delete "crew-served weapon" and create "crew-served" instead (e.g. "In the context of the artillery forces, a gun is a weapon that (a) is crew-served, (b) has a mechanism to control recoil"). It need not occur in the fixed phrase. Equinox ◑ 20:06, 8 March 2021 (UTC)

• Keep all, except the attributive form biological-weapon. DonnanZ (talk) 09:23, 10 March 2021 (UTC)
• Keep, generally. "Weapon" does not inherently imply "mass destruction" as opposed to, say, something used in hand-to-hand combat. bd2412 T 00:45, 11 March 2021 (UTC)
• Keep biological weapon, chemical weapon, atomic weapon and nuclear weapon; delete biological-weapon and crew-served weapon. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 13:16, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

  Agree with this per arguments by Mahagaja and Equinox. DAVilla 19:56, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

  @DAVilla I thought I'd alert you that this means you have not voted on thermonuclear weapon and radiological weapon; I'm not going to vote on those myself. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 10:19, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks. Keep radiological weapon per the argument for keeping nuclear weapon. Thermonuclear weapon might be the only unhyphenated one that's actually sum of parts, but we might have to raise that again once the dust settles, so to speak. This is going to be a crazy one to tally. DAVilla 13:41, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

• biological-weapon has already been approved for deletion as the result of a policy vote on attributive forms. Tag it for speedy deletion if you want it gone. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 00:40, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
• Delete chemical weapon and crew-served weapon. The definition of the first is wrong (underinclusive). See Bond v. United States for the broad, sum of parts sense. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 00:40, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

  I don't see any discussion of the definition of chemical weapon in the opinions for that case. The word chemical only appears 3 times, all in the following passage:

Section 229 forbids knowing possession or use of any chemical that “can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals” where not intended for a “peaceful purpose.” §229(a); 229F(1); (7); (8). The statute was en­acted as part of the Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act of 1998, 112 Stat. 2681–856, 22 U.S. C. §6701 et seq.; 18 U.S. C. §229 et seq. The Act implements provisions of the Convention on the Prohibi­tion of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, a treaty the United States ratified in 1997.

Note that the any chemical that “can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals” criteria is part of the statute which was "enacted as part of the Chemical Weapons Convention Implementation Act". But that is not described as defining a chemical weapon, and the defendant is never described as having made/used/possessed a "chemical weapon".

In any case, a legal finding about the definition of a word is less important than how the word is used in practice. Nix v. Hedden found that the tomato is a vegetable, but this should not bind our hands when we write our definition. Colin M (talk) 04:48, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

• Comment "atomic weapon" does not mean a weapon concerned with atoms or built from atoms (all non-software weapons are built from atoms, and concerned with atoms, since they are built from atoms). A weapon built from an atomic particle beam would not be a nuclear explosive. Reagan's SDI proposed to use such atom beam weaponry. -- 65.93.183.33 00:56, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
• Comment a uranium bomb is an atomic weapon but not a chemical weapon, even though it requires a specific chemical, uranium. It is also not a radiological weapon, even though some radiological weapon designs use uranium. Similarly with plutonium bomb. (both missing entries as of this moment) They are specifically fission bombs, even though fusion bombs use these as the fusion igniter. -- 65.93.183.33 01:01, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
• Keep all unhyphenated ones. An H-bomb was a common synonym for hydrogen bomb a few decades ago. U-bomb also exists but is less common. Facts707 (talk) 15:00, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Tallying all the votes the results seem to shake out as follows, with votes tallied as Keep to Delete:

• biological weapon is RFD kept (6-0)
• biological-weapon is RFD deleted (1-6)
• chemical weapon is RFD kept (6-1)
• atomic weapon is RFD kept (6-0)
• nuclear weapon is RFD kept (6-0)
• thermonuclear weapon is RFD kept (4-1)
• radiological weapon is RFD kept (5-0)
• crew-served weapon is RFD kept as no consensus (3-5)

Feel free to challenge any of these and/or add more votes. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 16:28, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

@The Editor's Apprentice: You listed biological weapon twice in your tally above. Is the second one supposed to be crew-served weapon? —Mahāgaja · talk 16:34, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

@Mahagaja: Yes, thanks for catching that. I guess that's what I get for not reviewing my edits. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 16:40, 6 May 2021 (UTC)