Wikipedia:Peer review/Natural selection/archive1

Natural selection

This article has been in a good-but-not-perfect state for a very long time; I remember promising to work on it soon back in October after an unsuccessful FAC nomination, and it was recently the subject of a stillborn SCOTM in February. I've been intermittently picking at it over the last couple of weeks but have left the basic structure intact. Specific questions:

• Placement and size of the antibiotic resistance example.
• Readability to people who haven't had this article watchlisted for months, possibly years
• 'Impact' section in particular, I think, needs further development. On the other hand, I think the history section may be hypertrophied considering that the subject is treated very well in other Wikipedia articles.

Thanks in advance. Opabinia regalis 03:42, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

bcasterline

I have a few comments, mostly regarding article size and organization.

• The article is fairly long. You might be able to summarize more briefly some of the sections that have their own articles. ("Historical development", as you suggest, is a good place to start.)

35k prose at the moment. I hate to cut this section too much because it's long-standing and rather well-written, but it does seem excessive. I'll give it a trim.

• Under "General principles": "Sexual selection" could be cut down and combined with "Types of selection".
• I would remove the "Nomenclature and usage" subsection and put that material in a paragraph immediately following the first paragraph of "General principles".

This and sexual selection have actually been trimmed a bit already. I moved the nomenclature section to the top but kept the subheader, as it doesn't really qualify as top-level material for 'general principles' (personally, I'd probably remove it altogether, but apparently this has in the past been a point of dispute). My bias is to keep sexual selection as its own header, but you're right that logically it goes under 'types'... will think about this.

• Too many stubby subsections under "Genetical theory of natural selection", though I'm not sure how it could be reorganized other than just removing the headings.

These are pretty standard subtopics, and I think there's a utility in keeping the recognizable terms in the TOC so people can find them easily without reading the whole article. But the TOC is quite long; does it at least fit on the first screen for you?

• The "Speciation" subheading under "Evolution by means of natural selection" is probably unnecessary.
• "Impact of the idea" has more stubby subsections which should be removed or reorganized. I would also rework the first sentence -- to say only that it had a profound influence on 19th-century thought suggests that its influence was less profound later (and today). The section is tangential by interesting: I like that the article is not limited to the science.

Good suggestion; I'm planning on rewriting that first paragraph, and I've been trying to think of where to move Lotka so he doesn't get his own header; all that maximum-power stuff is one of those systems concepts that's right on the border between 'useful' and 'nonsense'.

• More inline citations would be a plus. "Fitness" (under "General principles") and "Genetical theory of natural selection" are especially lacking.

Well, the material in those sections is really very uncontroversial, and mostly definitional more than anything; it can all be found laid out very straightforwardly in the Rice book. However, that book is very mathematical and probably not accessible to a general reader, so I'll try to rustle up a text that's less quantitative as a supplementary source. Are there any specific statements in those sections that you think need explicit citation? (You may also be interested in this thread on FA citation criteria, which didn't happen in the most visible place.)

• Overall, seems like scientific jargon is treated well. But I'm familiar with it so my opinion might not be the most useful.

Looks well done, but I think it'll need a little more work before FAC. Also consider submitting this entry to WP:SPR, although feedback may be long in coming if it comes at all. -- bcasterline • talk 20:41, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the review! I'll post here again after looking at the impact section, at minimum. I'm not sure scientific peer review would be helpful, since most if not all of the people who would be likely to participate already watch and maintain this article. Opabinia regalis 04:48, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Review by Awadewit

This is, in general, a very well-written and clear article. My biggest issue is that it is written on too high a level. Because natural selection is "foundational" to modern biology, as the writers say, I feel that the page should be more accessible. I also feel that it is possible to explain the concepts to people unfamiliar with the material (it does not require higher mathematics, for example). Many of my suggestions below bring up sentences or sections that I feel my college freshmen would not understand (some I did not understand, and I am a graduate student in English who is an avid reader of popular science books). I want to make clear that I think that the editors have done very good work, I just want to make sure that their work is comprehensible by the general public. I have posted my comments on the first third of the article. I will post more later.

• Opening sentence is crystal clear to me, but I keep thinking of my freshmen. Does "genetic" mean the same thing as "heritable"? If so, I wonder if you could use that instead. It is a much more familiar word.
  • Not quite the same, although this is part of the subtle nomenclature distinction below; it is possible for something to be heritable without being genetic, or to be genetic only in a second-order kind of way. This is a common criticism of the claim that intelligence must be genetic because it's highly heritable - maybe there's no gene for intelligence, but intelligent parents create the kind of environment that produces intelligent children. It is also at least possible for something to be genetic but not phenotypically heritable - as in cases of low penetrance - due to stochastic variations in gene expression. This distinction is currently preserved in the lead to evolution (which changes by the day lately, but anyway...) and I think it's worth preserving here. Anyone with a decent grasp of English should be able to grasp the basic meaning of 'heritable', I'd imagine? Opabinia regalis 04:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Thank you for that explanation. In regards to the article, it all depends on what you mean by a "decent grasp of English." I would say, no, that the majority of the college freshmen that I teach would not be able to define that word or, unfortunately, even guess what it means from context. This is, of course, just one person's opinion. I have only taught a few hundred undergraduates so far. Perhaps we should find someone with a larger data set to ask, someone who has taught a few thousand, for example. :) Anyway, all of these suggestions are simply that, suggestions for making the article more accessible to a wider range of readers. Awadewit 14:48, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Well, you're beating me by... a few hundred ;) But I'd be really, really surprised if the connection to 'inherited' wasn't a clue... the word could just as well have evolved as 'inheritable'. Opabinia regalis 03:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
        • You would think so. Sadly, no. I just thought I would point this out. Do want you think is best for the article. Awadewit 04:59, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
• What do you think about introducing "genotype" and "phenotype" later in the article? Do you have any idea how often people look at this article? I would actually think quite a bit and I remember even in my college class on genetics for non-scientists at Columbia people could not keep genotype and phenotype straight (it was so ridiculous). You might think about this in terms of the article. That whole semester, the professor kept repeating the definitions over and over again. They were on every test and people still kept messing them up and Columbia is no slouch school. For some reason, people cannot wrap their heads around the nuances of the difference.
  • Oh no, that's... so sad. So very sad. I have, however, spoken to an aspiring medical student who told me that his 'mnemonic' for this was that genotype meant genes. I always knew the pre-meds turned their brains of.... anyway, isn't this a good reason to put the distinction early in the article, and very clearly? Opabinia regalis 04:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
    • It's not really sad. It's pathetic. Anyway, I would leave it out of the lead and give yourself room at the beginning of the article to really explain it in detail with examples if you are going to use these words as often as you do. I just wanted to give you a sense of how difficult this terminology seems to be for (supposedly) smart people. Awadewit 14:51, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Even banishing the word phenotype from the lead wouldn't really help this problem, I don't think, because the concept is critical - and it doesn't seem to make sense to discuss the concept extensively without giving it a name. I think the fact that natural selection works on the phenotype but has effects on the genotypes of future generations used to be considered a trivial point, and became more important when people started noticing that the fitness of an individual gene could diverge from the fitness of the body it inhabited. I added a small example in the general principles section, and a definition of alleles (from a classical perspective... we don't need to get too much into the chemistry of DNA here). Opabinia regalis 03:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
• Over time, this passive process can result in adaptations which specialize organisms for particular ecological niches and in speciation events by which new species emerge. - "passive process"? You mean the organisms don't choose it, right? Odd phrasing, though. Repetition of "species"; how about, "adaptations which specialize organisms for particular ecological niches; this is how new species emerge." Something a bit more dramatic and clear, maybe?
  • The idea was to work in a wikilink to speciation too - rephrased. Opabinia regalis 04:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Link is good - attach to other words? Awadewit 15:08, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Sorry, I don't understand that last part. Opabinia regalis 03:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
        • I meant attach the link to a different word than "speciation" so that the word doesn't repeat. Awadewit 04:59, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
• I thought we weren't linking individual years (1859 book) - are we or arent't we? AHHHHHH!
  • Eh, I can't keep up with this stuff, and it's sad that many people can apparently find nothing better to do with their time than argue at length about this. I think this one is marginally useful, as other events in 1859 could be vaguely related, but it can go if someone cares more than I do. Opabinia regalis 04:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I could care less as well, I just wanted to point it out because I keep seeing that criticism arise at FAC. Awadewit 15:08, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
• The term was introduced by Charles Darwin in his groundbreaking 1859 book The Origin of Species,[1] by analogy with artificial selection, a process by which individuals with traits considered desirable by human breeders are systematically favored for reproduction. - "by analogy" comes too late, we've forgotten what the analogy would be to by this time; it seems like we're talking about Darwin's groundbreaking book, not "the term" - reword (also, choose one verb tense)
  • Rephrased.
• The concept of natural selection was originally developed in the absence of a theory of inheritance; the union of traditional Darwinian evolution with subsequent discoveries in molecular genetics is termed the modern evolutionary synthesis. - explain - this is all so opaque - I think you mean that they didn't know about genes and DNA (Mendel was a closeted monk, right?) - is the "modern synthesis" the joining of Watson/Crick to natural selection?
  • Actually a little less modern than that; more like the joining of Mendel and Darwin - classical genetics didn't require a theory about the physical nature of genes to work. Tried to give a bit more context in the lead, without bogging down too much. Opabinia regalis 04:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
• Although other mechanisms of molecular evolution, such as the neutral theory advanced by Motoo Kimura, have been identified as important causes of genetic diversity, natural selection remains the single primary explanation for adaptive evolution. - if it is the single primary explanation, should it not remain alone in the lead in an article by itself? This introduction of another concept that I had to click on (sorry, I've never heard of "neutral theory" and it's not explained here) was distracting. All of a sudden, I, a stauch evolutionist, was going, what, natural selection is wrong? I don't think you want that. Something about the wording is off. Perhaps it is the "although." I would leave it off the lead, altogether, unless it is vital to understanding natural selection.
  • Is it really that jarring? Is it better now? There's a population of biologists who will smack people for 'naive' views of selection, especially those who work with molecular data - which are full of drifty stuff that makes actual adaptive changes hard to see amid all the noise. Hopefully some of the others who watch this article will have an opinion on this, though, as I know I'm biased on the molecular side. Opabinia regalis 04:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Right, but this article is not for biologists, really, is it? They should know all of this stuff, right? Isn't this all from Bio 101? You know how in physics you start with the planetary model of the atom and then move to the orbital model of the atom and then move to whatever comes next. There are more, but I never got there. The point is, these other models are not really correct, they just help people understand some of the basic concepts. So the article may initially look naive but it will go into more detail and of course it can never provide all of the detail that evolutionary biologists know. In this case, I think your article is actually more accurate than an planetary or orbital description of the atom, right? Awadewit 15:08, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
      • It's not inaccurate, just (some argue) misplaced emphasis. (Do people still teach the planetary atom thing? I don't think I ever got that without the obligatory asterisk.) I suspect that, if the molecular people were in charge of bio 101 (and there were no political minefields to deal with), they'd present selection and drift as parallel processes, rather than the current common setup where selection is discussed in detail and nobody hears of drift until they take a dedicated genetics class. But if you work with and present only morphological data, you really don't 'see' much drift. I put this question on the talk page for now. Opabinia regalis 03:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
        • I was taught the planetary model first (without the asterisk). Awadewit 04:59, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
• Didn't Darwin do the finch analysis in the first picture you have? You might mention that.
  • Done.
• The phenotype is the overall result of an individual's genetic make-up - "overall result" is not clear - isn't the phenotype the "outward" or bodily appearance of an organism, which is the result of genes, environment, etc.? Am I wrong? Was all that repetition in my class to no avail?
  • Reworded a bit to make this clearer - it's supposed to be 'overall result of genes, environment, gene-gene interactions, and gene-environment interactions', so they're all elements of a list. Opabinia regalis 04:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
• Often, natural selection acts on specific traits of an individual - what do you mean by "trait"? The most common usage of this word, by the way, is "character trait." I know you don't mean that but a lay reader doesn't automatically know what you mean by "trait."
  • Linked again to trait (biology). It's a fuzzy enough concept that trying to define it here for those who can't jump the chasm from 'character trait' to the biological usage is probably fruitless. Opabinia regalis 04:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I'm just letting you know what the general associations of the term are and why the word should be defined. You know how scientists use the word "theory" differently than the general public and how that has caused a lot of commotion in the evolution debate? It's the same principle. The connotations of these words can be very different to a lay audience. I'm not saying they can't understand it, I'm trying to tell you what many people might think when they read the word "trait." Awadewit 15:08, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
      • I don't really think the biological usage is so different from the common usage in this case, though, do you? Or is my 'normal usage' already contaminated? ;) Opabinia regalis 03:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
        • Trait in biology seems to be a lot more concrete than its everyday usage. Character traits are often elusive things like "patience." Dictionary.com, for example, defines "trait" as "a distinguishing characteristic or quality, esp. of one's personal nature: bad traits of character." Awadewit 04:59, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
• Most traits are influenced by the interactions of many genes, but some traits exhibit Mendelian inheritance patterns and are governed by only a single gene. - perhaps "Most traits are influenced by the interactions of many genes, but some traits are governed by only a single gene - they exhibit Mendelian inheritance patterns." - that way the easy part comes first and it is clear that the two definitions mean the same thing
  • Reworded.
• The "Nomenclature and usage" section makes subtle distinctions. I know that wikipedia is against explanatory examples, but they are necessary here. My students would never understand this passage. If wikipedia won't let the editors write their own, there must be published examples. I know I have read them somewhere. Let me know if you want me to dig them up.
  • I don't know what they're lawyering about on ATT or wherever, but I'm not sure an example is really what this distinction needs - I'd just as soon throw out the section altogether, as the distinction is subtle enough to be irrelevant at this level. But you've seen examples of this nomenclature distinction? Where? Opabinia regalis 04:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I'll try to find them, but it will be a few days because I am off to an academic conference. Might be Dawkins, I'm not sure. Awadewit 15:08, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Oh, enjoy the conference, then! Opabinia regalis 03:58, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
        • Back from the conference. Looking for the sources, but I'm leaving for another conference in a few days. I don't know if I will have time to find them before then. Awadewit 04:59, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
• The basis of this approach is easily seen - most writing manuals will tell you it is not a good idea to tell your readers that something is "easy" or "obvious" because if it's not "easy" or "obvious" to them, you have just insulted them
  • Ah yes, 'the proof is trivial' ;) Reworded to 'is clear', which may not be much better, but I felt like I was insulting the reader just writing this out. It really should be very obvious, shouldn't it? Opabinia regalis 04:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I'm afraid many things are far from obvious to many people. You might see some of the debates I am engaged in at FAC over the use of sources as examples. There is apparently a wide misunderstanding regarding the reliability of primary sources (such as autobiographies) and popular histories and biographies. What seems perfectly obvious to me, such as one cannot rely on Reagan's autobiography as the main source for his article, does not seem obvious to others. Obviousness seems to be in the eye of the beholder. :) I am currently writing a manifesto on sources I have had so many debates over this. Awadewit 15:08, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Oh my, I had seen the Reagan FAC in passing but hadn't really appreciated it till now. There are tons of misconceptions floating around here about proper use of sources and the function of references - I suspect this arises from lack of writing experience, but I guess you're not supposed to say that out loud ;) You should definitely write something about this; you're one of the most articulate defenders of good choices of source material. Opabinia regalis 03:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
• if an organism lives half as long as others of its species, but has twice as many offspring surviving to adulthood, its genes will become enriched in the adult population of the next generation - "enriched"? - I found that confusing diction
  • Changed to 'more common'. Opabinia regalis 04:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
• Natural selection acts on individuals, but its average effect on all individuals with a particular genotype is the fitness of that genotype. Fitness of a genotype is measured as the expected number of surviving progeny for an individual with that genotype, equivalent to the reproductive success or to the proportion of surviving progeny multiplied by the expected fecundity. A fitness value of greater than one indicates that the frequency of that genotype in the population increases, while a value of less than one indicates that it decreases. The relative fitness of a genotype is estimated as the proportion of the fitness of a reference genotype. Related to relative fitness is the selection coefficient, which is the difference between the relative fitness of two genotypes. The larger the selection coefficient, the stronger natural selection will act against the genotype with the lowest fitness. - This paragraph could be explained a little better. I don't think that I really understand it.
  • This is basically an attempt to say what's in fitness (biology) without the equations. Which seem to put people off for some reason ;) I don't think the formal definitions need so much airtime in the absence of the equation, so I'll reword this. Opabinia regalis 04:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Actually, I think that the equation would help. Seeing the equation written out in words is very confusing to me. Awadewit 15:08, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
• The fitness of an organism may be broadly said to be a function of the fitnesses of its alleles. - first time the word "alleles" has appeared - no link - no explanation
  • Will put a paragraph in the general principles section on the basics of this stuff. Opabinia regalis 04:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
• selective pressure can be produced by any aspect of the environment, including mates and conspecifics - give us a phrase and "conspecifics," especially because the link was to the middle of some page on competition, so it was not immediately clear what I was supposed to be looking for (are "conspecifics" organisms that are in competition? it doesn't say that anywhere on the "competition" page)
  • That's bad, I didn't realize there was nothing very relevant there. It means 'members of the same species' and is now defined inline. (And this is as far as I got today... more later.) Opabinia regalis 04:07, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
• It is also useful to make a mechanistic distinction between ecological selection and the narrower term sexual selection. - "mechanistic distinction"? Again, this is sophisticated language.
• Ah, we finally get to "An example." While this is a nice example, I would argue that the article needs examples sprinkled throughout it. Frankly, most people cannot learn from abstract concepts alone. Educational theorists will tell you that being able to learn from concepts alone is a mark of intelligence (those theorists who believe in intelligence, anyway).
• You might mention what you mean by "misuse" of antibiotics in the first paragraph, rather than burying it in the middle of the example.
  • Example's been rearranged a bit, so that the arms-race stuff is all together. I'm not sure this is the place to get into all the ways people misuse antibiotics though. Opabinia regalis 03:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
    • You might at least mention not taking antibiotics until the end of their specified run. "Misuse" might imply drug overdose to some people. Awadewit 16:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
• Have you read the NSF report on scientific literacy (they do this study every other year)? It is appalling. Anyway, one of the things people have a really poor idea of is numbers, so I would suggest instead of saying among their vast numbers of individual members saying how many specifically and explaining one reason why it is that bacteria can become resistant so fast - there are a lot of them reproducing very fast.
  • I hope you don't mind me commenting on your review, especially a rather trivial point, but I wonder about this. I was always under the impression that stating an actual number, when that number is extremely large, is even less helpful because people simply can't visualize it. As a result it means nothing to them. In other words, a "vast number" is more easily grasped than "about 110 million", or whatever. -- bcasterline • talk 17:25, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
    • This is a good point. But what if the editors put the number in context somehow? Something like "there are 10 times more bacteria in the human body than human cells." Or some other illuminating comparison. Awadewit 18:16, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Hmmm. The difficulty with this is that there really isn't some fixed number that can be offered up as 'you need this many bacteria to get this effect' or whatever, and the bacteria/human cell ratio is mostly irrelevant since the vast majority of those bacteria are not the pathogenic ones. Also, the number of pathogenic bacteria present during an infection is certainly widely variable, though I'm not sure that it's been reliably measured. On the other hand, 'vast' is really weak for expressing the magnitude of this.
• several new strains of MRSA have emerged that are resistant to vancomycin and teicoplanin - how about "resistant to the antibiotics"?
• In your schematic representation of resistance, which is great, by the way, I would move the key to the bottom so that people don't confuse the key with the populations. Again, it really is enlightening to read reports. The tests associated with No Child Left Behind (whatever you think of the law - let's leave that aside) reveal that many if not most of the high school students in the United States cannot interpret a basic table or graph (let us not even consider a slightly more sophisticated graph).
  • I'm not sure what you mean - the key is at the bottom? You mean put more space between the populations and the key? Opabinia regalis 03:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I mean put the key under the caption. I have a feeling some people might think the key is another population set. Awadewit
      • Ahh. OK, assuming I see what you're getting at, that would make the key its own separate image displayed below the text caption. I think that might cause more problems with images lining up and such - would it help if I just moved the key down in the image, so that there's more white space between it and the populations? Opabinia regalis 06:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
        • I didn't realize it would be so complicated to move it! How about more space and a thick black line? Awadewit 16:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
• Natural selection by itself is a simple concept, in which fitness differences between phenotypes play a crucial role. It is the union of natural selection as a mechanism with genetic material as a substrate that offers most of the theory's explanatory power. - again, with the "simple" - also, "substrate"? not a common word - makes me think of rocks, for some reason
  • 'Substrate' is the most natural choice in my mind - guess I'll have to think of a better word. Opabinia regalis 03:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
• Is "genetical" a word? Why not just "genetic"? It sounds like the always annoying "ironical." Awadewit 14:26, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, it's an old word, but it was the one used in originally formulating the theory and is now universally but exclusively used in this context. Opabinia regalis 03:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow - that is incredibly detailed, thank you! Hard to believe it's just the first third of the article ;) Sorry for not responding more specifically, or doing any work, but I've gotten tied up in meatspace (hmm, mixed metaphors...) and may not be around much for the next couple of days. Opabinia regalis 04:39, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

More comments.

• Overall, in the "Genetical theory of natural selection" section, I would say: examples, examples, examples.
  • Added a couple; can add more, but I wonder how useful these are given the fact that there isn't enough room to go into much explanation of the example itself. Opabinia regalis 04:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Anything concrete seems to help. Awadewit 16:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
• I wonder if you can condense the first few paragraphs of "Evolution by means of natural selection." There is some repetition there.
  • You're right; will be truncated more. Opabinia regalis 04:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
• I would say that you could cut the first two paragraphs under "Pre-Darwinian theories." I would stick to the direct history of "natural selection" and let the rest fork.
  • OK, it's been chopped a bit - I do think a little background is relevant, as the theory was anticipated to a greater degree than is usually taught. Opabinia regalis 04:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
• radical evolutionists such as Jean Baptiste Lamarck had proposed that characteristics - what is a "radical evolutionist"?
  • Nothing in particular; removed. Opabinia regalis 04:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
• might be inherited by their progeny, causing, in enough time - "in enough time" - sounds awkward
  • Reworded. Opabinia regalis 04:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
• It is not totally clear how Lamarckism is different from Darwinism.
  • Lamarckism as a theory is essentially about inheritance, and happens to have a mechanism of evolution attached. They aren't inherently incompatible, except in the practical sense that acquired characteristics don't change subtly over time as is usually assumed for natural selection. Darwin explicitly did not posit the inheritance of acquired characteristics as a requirement of his theory, though he didn't really have a better theory of inheritance. (One criticism was that 'blending' of characteristics wouldn't maintain them long enough for selection to work, but as far as I know, most people by that time didn't take blending inheritance very seriously.) Opabinia regalis 04:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
    • You might explain this a little more clearly, especially the first part. Awadewit 16:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Does the current version serve this purpose? 'Inheritance of acquired characteristics' emphasizes the inheritance angle and links to more detail. Opabinia regalis 04:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
        • Yes, I think this is better, but I was wondering if you were trying to link it to the geological theories or not. I was assuming you were but that was not explicitly clear. Awadewit 15:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
• For Darwin, natural selection was synonymous with evolution by natural selection - just confusing until you read further - start with something that is not confusing
  • Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. It's confusing that Darwin didn't conceive of other evolutionary mechanisms? Opabinia regalis 04:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
    • The sentence as it is worded sounds odd because most people don't think of natural selection as a mechanism. The rest of the paragraph makes this clear, but the opening sentence might confuse. Awadewit 16:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Reorganized a bit. Opabinia regalis 04:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
• Within a decade of The Origin of Species, most educated people had begun to accept that evolution had occurred in some form or another - this is debatable - you might want to find a source
  • It's been reorganized a bit. I need to hit the library this weekend, I suspect, as a significant fraction of the books I own related to this subject are still in a box in another state. Opabinia regalis 04:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
    • That is so annoying, I'm so sorry. Awadewit 16:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
      • It's my own fault, this has been true for months. But books are heavy and hard to move, dammit! Opabinia regalis 04:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
        • I don't even have room for all of mine. They are stacked all over my apartment and in suitcases in my office. It's sad. Poor books. :) Awadewit 15:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
• This synthesis propelled natural selection to the forefront of evolutionary theories, where it remains today. - "forefront" - I think this is the wrong word, don't you mean something like "the center" or "foundation"? "Forefront" often means untested and unproven.
  • It's now a foundation. Opabinia regalis 04:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
• Darwin's ideas, along with those of Adam Smith and Karl Marx, had a profound influence on 19th-century thought. - why are you invoking Smith and Marx? You need to explain - there are many people who influenced 19c thought - why are you mentioning these two? how are they connected to Darwin?
  • I don't really know; I didn't write that section, and intend to rewrite it when I get some time. Smith in particular is a little curious - I know I've seen references to Marx, Darwin, and Freud as the three most influential 19th-century thinkers, though I suppose swapping Smith for Freud makes sense given the time period being discussed (which is itself curious). I expect this will be rewritten after the aforementioned library trip. Opabinia regalis 04:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I know why Smith is included (Wealth of Nation and the division of the labor). I think it would be odd to include Freud since his ideas primarily influenced the twentieth century. It depends on what you want to say. Do you want to talk about thinkers who "profoundly influenced" the nineteenth century or the twentieth century? Awadewit 16:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Well, it's a bit awkward to be talking about the 19th century so narrowly in the first paragraph of that section (it was more than half over when Darwin finally published, after all), especially since the subsections all focus on 20th-century thought. I don't propose including Freud here, but rather dethroning Smith and Marx; this should be very brief and general, not an intellectual history essay. There is also an extended series of articles on Darwin's reception and influence that are not well titled, but seem reasonably complete, and I'm fine with offloading most of the 'big' stuff to them. Opabinia regalis 04:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
        • I agree. Awadewit 15:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
• Tell us who Engels is when you quote him. Not everyone knows. And what about giving us his first name, too?
  • Done. Opabinia regalis 04:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
• Interpretation of natural selection as necessarily 'progressive', leading to increasing 'advances' in intelligence and civilisation, was used as a justification for colonialism and policies of eugenics, as well as broader sociopolitical positions now described as Social Darwinism. - awkwardly worded
  • Left alone for now, as I'm planning to do some reorganizing here. Opabinia regalis 04:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
• Extensions of the theory of natural selection to such a wide range of cultural phenomena have been distinctly controversial and are not widely accepted within most fields of cultural studies. - I don't think you mean "cultural studies." "Cultural studies" is a real subfield within history and literary studies and I have a feeling that many of its practitioners would accept the extension of natural selection into these other realms.
  • I think that's true in the sense that they don't oppose natural selection, and would grant that it has had influences on the emergence of human psychology; however, most of the theories thus far put forth under the sociobiology/evolutionary psychology umbrella have not been well received. (Particularly true for any theory involving the evolution of sex differences.) I think the wording is off; it's not that anyone opposes the idea of natural selection applying to human psychology, but that they oppose how it's been applied so far. Also, as far as I understand, the majority (but not the entirety) of this opposition has come from anthropologists. 04:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Yes, the opposition has come from scientists. Unfortunately, some people in the humanities have taken this idea and run with it (sad to say - I fight these battles all of the time). I just think that you shouldn't use the phrase "cultural studies" because to any humanities academic it signifies something totally different than what you mean. I actually do cultural studies and it is not this at all; it is a study of society that joins the techniques of history and literary studies (very loosely). Awadewit 16:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Oh dear, anthropologists are scientists now? ;) I didn't realize 'cultural studies' had been claimed as a standalone term any more specific than 'the study of culture', but I just dropped the qualifier phrase altogether. Opabinia regalis 04:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
        • I think anthropologists are in between science and social science. Certainly many of them claim to be doing science and some of them are using much more scientific methods (data sets and all) than we would ever use in literary studies or history. I can tell you that literary scholars and historians think anthropology is something very different than what they do. Awadewit 15:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
• The "Social and psychological theory" section seems choppy and truncated. Is it necessary for this page which is really about scientific natural selection? Could there be a different page for all of these adaptations? :)
  • This will hopefully get better. It's sort of an odd union of topics at the moment, mixing early reactions that have completely lost their currency with much more recent work. I'm a little hesitant even to leave the two together (even though I put the new stuff there), given the fact that 'sociobiology' got accused of advocating eugenics and all sorts of terrible evils to the point where the word has completely fallen out of favor. Opabinia regalis 04:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
• For FAC, you will probably want to include more citations. At least one per section!
  • Fortunately, I think, the tide seems to be shifting away from counting notes over there. I'll probably just put a note along with the Rice book and a (hopefully) forthcoming simpler text that they are solid works to consult for more information on the definitional stuff (fitness, genetical theory section). I could just repeat notes to Rice in every genetical theory subsection, but I don't think that really helps. Opabinia regalis 04:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Is it turning? The tides turn quickly, then. I would still think that you would want to be able to point readers to specific sections of a book on specific topics. Awadewit 16:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Done at the chapter level; this article just isn't 'granular' enough for specific pages to be pertinent, except as a restatement of definitions. Will definitely need a general text; in looking this up I skimmed a whole bucketload of unnecessary integrals. Opabinia regalis 04:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
        • Chapters sound about right to me. Awadewit 15:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
• What do you think of more pictures? For example, of close alleles and far-away alleles or even just pairs of chromosomes? Awadewit 04:59, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • More pictures good. I hope to track one down for genetic linkage, which is kind of hard to visualize from a text description. I think you're right that a picture of a chromosome with a few arrows will help people concretize the descriptions of alleles and loci and whatnot. Opabinia regalis 04:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

In case I don't see it, let me know when this comes up for FA. Awadewit 15:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Will do. Thank you so much for what may be the most detailed review I've ever seen on WP ;) This probably won't hit FAC for another couple of weeks, as I'm still busy in the real world, and I expect to be out of town next weekend. Opabinia regalis 02:42, 30 March 2007 (UTC)