Talk:Modern synthesis (20th century)/GA3

GA Review

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Reviewer: Jens Lallensack (talk · contribs) 05:05, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Sorry for letting you wait for so long. First comments below:

Many thanks for taking this on. Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:42, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

• In the 19th and early 20th centuries, variations of Lamarckism, orthogenesis (progressive evolution), saltationism (evolution by jumps) and mutationism (evolution driven by mutations) were discussed as alternatives – It would be even more comprehensible if "Lamarckism" would also have a brief explanation in parenthesis, as was done for the other terms.

Done.

• Samuel Butler coined the term neo-Darwinism in 1880 to refer to the selectionist version of evolution advocated by Alfred Russel Wallace.[4][5] Unlike Darwin, Wallace completely rejected neo-Lamarckian inheritance of acquired characteristics. – Reading flow is not optimal. It is very difficult to comprehend what the first sentence is all about without rereading, as the less important information is at the beginning and the important only at the end. Also, why is this Samuel Butler relevant? Maybe make two separate points out of it: First describe Wallace's ideas, and than state that these later modifications of darwinism have been refert to as neo-Darwinism (also link this term).

Done.

• Weismann's germ plasm, 1892 – in other parts of the article, emphasis is put on the hypothesis of "blending inheritance". While reading, I had the desire to know if Weismann's hypothesis supported or rejected blending inheritance, that might be worth mentioning.

The germ plasm is compatible with Mendelian inheritance (as we know, both are explained by genes - inheritance particles made of DNA - in the nucleus), but Weismann didn't go that far.

• mutationism linked twice.

Fixed, but in a long article where things are discussed far apart and from different angles, modest overlinking is both permitted and can be helpful to the reader.

• They argued vigorously against mutationism – Since there are more persons mentioned in the previous sentence, maybe write "The latter" instead of "They" to make clear from the beginning on to who this is referring to?

Said 'the biometricians'.

• A traditional view is that the biometricians and the Mendelians rejected natural selection and argued for their separate theories for 20 years, the debate only resolved by the development of population genetics. – It might slightly improve reading flow to remove the line break following this sentence.

Done.

• Yule criticised Bateson's confrontational approach – What confrontational approach? This was not mentioned before. Rather, it was stated that Bateson did not even reject the idea of continuous variation.

Said "criticised Bateson's approach as confrontational".

• link recessive

Done.

• that continuous variation could not be inherited permanently – hard to understand, might be more comprehensible with additional explanation.

Glossed.

• which helped establish the link between Mendelian genetics and the chromosomal theory of inheritance, – this sentence part does not seem strictly pertinent to the rest of the sentence. It also makes the sentence long and difficult to read. I would suggest deleting it or making it its own point somewhere else, adding brief explanation on what chromosomal theory of inheritance implies. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 05:05, 12 May 2018 (UTC)

Moved to footnote and glossed.

• characterised by a framework of hypotheses which could be verified – as a non-native speaker I might be on the wrong track, but shouldn't it be "that" instead of "which"?

We Brits use "which" but "that"'s fine with me too.

• R. A. Fisher – link at first mention in article body. Also, you give the full name for some authorities (e.g., Sewall Wright) but only initials for others. This is a minor nitpick, but reading flow would be a tad better if this would be consistent.

Some of these people were known by their initials, just as literary figures were (JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis ...). Others used their first names. I think we should go with this usage.

Sure, in that case I suggest to use initials for Ronald Fisher in the image caption.

• His 1949 book Mendelism and Evolution,[61] helped to persuade Dobzhansky to change the emphasis in the third edition of his famous text from drift to selection.[62] – Is that comma correct here? Also, I would think about repeating the title of Dobzhanskys text here, or at least add the year of publication, to make it easier to find.

Fixed, done.

• Ivan Schmalhausen developed the theory of stabilizing selection, – maybe add a short definition/explanation of the term here?

Done.

• However, the book was not what it seemed. – A bit vague and imprecise, and maybe not in decent encyclopedian language.

Edited.

• Ruse observes that Huxley wrote as if he were just adding empirical evidence to the mathematical framework established by Fisher and the population geneticists, but that this was not so. – The "just" implies to me that he did more than adding empirical evidence. Maybe remove the "just"?

Done.

• and so on – maybe better "amongst others" or something similar?

Fixed.

• appearance of orthogenetic trends - predictable directions – in such cases, you should use the ndash or better the mdash instead of the hyphen minus.

Done.

• Huxley further showed that the appearance of orthogenetic trends - predictable directions for evolution - in the fossil record were readily explained as allometric growth (since parts are interconnected) – probably its just me, but I don't get this sentence. Do you mean heterochrony?

Said long-term trends: the idea of orthogenesis (which is linked) is that some force pushes organisms in some direction, rhinoceroses to grow larger horns or whatever. There's an illustration in the Simpson section.

I don't understand the link between orthogenesis and allometric growth. How can the latter (differential growth of an individuum) explain the first? Does this mean that ontogeny is reflecting evolution (with plesiomorphic features present in embryos and derived features in adults)?

Orthogenesis doesn't exist (argues Huxley); the appearance of it is simply differential growth (between fossils in a time-sequence) if selection happens momentarily to be driving something in some direction; in other environments, no doubt selection will push other things in other directions.

• polytypic is linked, but not at first mention (also: speciation).

Linked first instances.

• Paleontology, paleontologist – Both American English and British English spellings are present in the article, could be uniform. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 17:21, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Good catch, fixed.

The remainder of the article seems fine. Although a good copy edit on prose could improve readability even further, the article fully meets the GA standards. I will therefore promote now. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:20, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Many thanks for the review. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:14, 15 May 2018 (UTC)