Talk:Abiogenesis/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Ealdgyth (talk · contribs) 23:24, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, hey, another biology article from CC! I'll get to this in the next few days. Ealdgyth (talk) 23:24, 3 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks! Chiswick Chap (talk) 04:35, 4 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose, spelling, and grammar): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (reference section): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR): d (copyvio and plagiarism):
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias:
It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.:
It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
a (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall:
Pass/Fail:

Lead:
- "over 4 Gya," Gya is what?
- Added.

Overview:
- "a cell, whether LUCA" I THINK it needs "whether the LUCA" but I'm not sure and we're well enough out of my field of expertise that I'm not going to copyedit .. heh
  - Happy with "the LUCA".
- Okay, so... bear with the historian here - is it known for sure that the LUCA is a single cell? The implication in the second and third paragraphs here is that it was, but its never explicitly stated as such.
  - Well, both the Bacteria and the Archaea are largely single-celled, and it's the obvious place for a start (and grow from there), so everyone assumes so. Added.
- Do we have an article to point to for "2015 NASA strategy on the origin of life"?
  - Yes, ref name="NASA strategy 2015".

Spontaneous generation:
- "An ancient view, from Aristotle until the 19th century, is of spontaneous generation." may I suggest "One ancient view of the origin of life, ..." which gives a bit fuller explanation
  - Done. Aristotle was a bit vague about whether he meant the origin of the individual or of the type, in modern terms ontogeny vs phylogeny, though as he didn't believe in evolution he couldn't have gone very far along the phylogeny axis really!

"A Warm little pond":
- "monomers" link?
  - Linked.

Miller-Urey:
- "highly reducing mixture of gases" explanation or link?
  - Linked and glossed.

Early universe:
- "solar masses" link or explanation (I actually KNOW what this is since I've been listening to a very long series of astronomy/cosmology/physics lectures on Wondrium but...)
  - Reworded.

Emergence of Earth:
- "The Hadean Earth" can we have a quick explanation of this time period in this article so the reader doesn't have to click away to have some idea of the time scale?
  - Added.

- We don't give a date for the formation of Earth?
  - Added with the one above.

- "However, new lunar surveys and samples have led scientists, including an architect of the Nice model, to deemphasize the Late Heavy Bombardment." deemphasize it as a mechanism for abiogenesis or deempahsize that the LHB occurred?
  - Both really, if the LHB was just a storm in a teacup then it wouldn't have affected the origin of life much. Tweaked wording.

Earliest evidence:
- "The Earth was formed 4.54 billion years ago (Gya)." this would probably work better as the first sentence in the "emergence of earth" section
  - Moved.

Producing suitable:
- "prebiotic amphiphiles" link?
  - Reworded. Amphiphile is already linked.

- "The result suggest that the LUCA" ... should be "The results suggest" or "The result suggests"
  - Fixed.

- "susceptible to error catastrophe" link/explanation for "error catastrophe"?
  - Linked.

Deep sea:
- "conventional threefold tree of life" link?
  - Linked.

Iron-sulfur world:
- "weak cation chelators" link?
  - Linked.

Other scenarios:
- Can we list a few of them here instead of just the empty section with the "main article"? Or alternatively (heh heh) we could just move the "alternative" link up to right under "Suitable" heading.
  - Good idea, done that.

I mostly managed to stay somewhat within understanding distance of the explanations, but please do not assume that my review dug deep into the actual depths of the content. If you're considering going past GA for this article, I strongly urge you to find a subject-matter-expert editor to review the contents and not rely on my review here. Heh.
- Thank you. I actually think that having an intelligent general editor review an article like this to GA is quite a severe text as there's a lot to explain, so I'm pleased you found you could read it with a feeling of near-comprehension. I hope the new diagrams helped, too.
  - Thank you for that - sometimes I feel like I'm in over my head with some of these biology articles, but I do try to review outside my comfort area ... and i do think that having non-experts involved in the review process is important to get something that is at least mostly understandable to the regular reader. Ealdgyth (talk) 16:14, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I randomly googled three phrases and only turned up Wikipedia mirrors. Earwig's tool shows no sign of copyright violation (the one at 30% is flagging up something that's a quotation in the wiki article).
- Noted, thanks.

I've put the article on hold for seven days to allow folks to address the issues I've brought up. Feel free to contact me on my talk page, or here with any concerns, and let me know one of those places when the issues have been addressed. If I may suggest that you strike out, check mark, or otherwise mark the items I've detailed, that will make it possible for me to see what's been addressed, and you can keep track of what's been done and what still needs to be worked on. Ealdgyth (talk) 16:10, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ealdgyth - I've addressed all those items. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:37, 6 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

All the changes look good - passing this now. Ealdgyth (talk) 16:14, 7 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]