Talk:Dale's principle/GA1

GA Review

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch
It's interesting to see a fairly short article up for GA review - and makes a pleasant change from some monsters I've reviewed recently!

Coverage

Looks OK.

Structure

Given the confusion in the literature, it would be helpful to give a correct statement in the first para. So e.g. "Dale's principle states that (modern "correct" version) ... It was attributed ..."

I'm not sure what to do here. The problem is that Nicoll and Malenka use the "wrong" version, but I can hardly think of anybody more authoritative than Nicoll and Malenka. It's a case where reputable sources say completely different things.

Eccles (1976; already cited) gives what you present as a more correct formulation.

BTW does any source say anything like 'The addition of "or substances" is critical'? If not, that sentence is original research, which is forbidden.

Re "I can hardly think of anybody more authoritative than Nicoll and Malenka", even the top names in a science are not 100% reliable. Any modern science is so wide in scope that researchers have to specialise, and take as given the statements of specialists in other sub-fields. One common pitfall is taking as given what they were told as students, which may be out-of-date or over-simplified - I see plenty of this in paleontology articles. --Philcha (talk) 11:45, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Then demonstrate the confusion in the literature. It would be useful to state:
- What Dale himself said / wrote, when, and where. International Review Of Cytology may help you track it down, as may other results from Google Books for Dale's principle.

Done, I think.

So Eccles (1954) was responsible for the later confusion? If so, it would not be the only time an authority has created confusion, see for example Precambrian rabbit.

If I understand this correctly, the Eccles (1976) formulation should be used in the lead sentence so that readers see the correct version first, and then you can discuss the confusion in a later para. --Philcha (talk)

- An example of the "one and only one" interpretation (Nicoll, RA (1998). "A tale of two transmitters". Science. 281: 360–1. doi:10.1126/science.281.5375.360. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help), already cited)

Not sure what you're asking for here, since the example is already there.

I'm not talking about adding content but about re-arranging the existing content so that it's as clear as possible to non-specialist readers. --Philcha (talk) 11:45, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

- Where this the "one and only one" interpretation came from. The text currently seems to imply that some earlier work by Eccles was responsible. Nicoll & Malenka (1998) may contain citations that identify where they got the "one and only one" interpretation from.

They don't cite any sources that go beyond what I've used here (with the new additions). The logic of their commentary is a bit difficult for me to follow. At the end, they say, "Should we mourn the fact that Dale's principle is in trouble? In a limited sense the principle may still stand, because none of the new results show that different processes of the same neuron release a different complement of transmitters." Again I'm not quite sure what to do with this.

Reading the changes you've already made, it looks to me like:

Dale said something that was never written down verbatim at the time. If alternative sources for what Dale actually said / wrote can be found, that would probably help to clarify the situation.
Eccles (1954) reported it as "one and only one".
Eccles (1976) reformulated it as "one or more".
Nicoll and Malenka (1998) used the "one and only one" interpretation, ignoring / unaware of Eccles (1976).

It would help a lot if you could cite other recent formulations of Dale's principle, so we can see whether it's Eccles or Nicoll and Malenka that are out of step.

Even if the evidence indicates that Dale said "one and only one", that does not make the principle worthess. Science often progresses from special cases to more generalised formulations - see for example Newton's mechanics and Einstein's two theories of relativity; or Emanuel Lasker's theorem and Emmy Noether's generalisation of that. --Philcha (talk) 11:45, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PS When doing major re-structures I often find it helpful to copy the articles into a sandbox page, e.g. User:Looie496/Sandbox/Dale's principle. Then you can try out different approaches. See for example User:Philcha/Sandbox/Evolutionary history of life. When the job is finished and the actual article is the way you want it, you can get obsolete sandbox pages deleted by pasting

at the top of the obsolete sandbox page. --Philcha (talk) 11:56, 18 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As this implies a bit of re-shuffling, I'll look at other aspects when the structure has been dealt with - citations, etc. --Philcha (talk) 21:46, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the comments -- responses are interposed. Looie496 (talk) 21:18, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I see you've been busy. Sorry for being so slow to respond. This is becoming like the Watergate Affair - what did Dale say and when did he say it? And it looks like Eccles was initially not as careful as he might have been about how he reported Dale's view(s) - which might have changed a bit between 1934 and 1952. A few suggestions:

The text and citation should make it clear that the 1934 BMJ article was not written by Dale but by a third party. Perhaps "an anonymous reporter" would do the job.
Need to search for what Dale said in "Transmission of effects from nerve endings" (1952) - another lecture, so we may be at the mercy of "an anonymous reporter"! A search for artciles that cite Dale (1954) might also provide alternatives to or corroboration of Eccle's version. The first thing Google gave me was Henry Hallett Dale, 1875–1968 (H. O. Schild; Reviews of Physiology, Biochemistry and Pharmacology, Volume 63, Issue 1, Pages - 11-19 19; 1971-01-01; DOI - 10.1007/BFb0047740), but I couln't get access to the full text (surprised me, as I can access most zoology and paleontology artciles). In any case I'm no neurochemist, so I'll leave it to those who know better.
Please add DOI / PMID / URL / etc. for sources that are available online, so that readers don't have to google for title & author. If there's a choice, use a link that gives access to the full text for those with appropriate log-ins, rather than sales pages ("please pay $$$") or simple bibliographies. Eccles et al (1954). How else can a poor reviewer check that the sources support what the article says?
All parts of the article, including quotes where possible, need to distinguish very clearly what meaning of "same" they're talking about.. For example, and purely hypothetically:
- Any particular neuron only ever releases the one neuro-transmitter.
- Any particular neuron only ever releases one neuro-transmitter at a time, although it may release different neuro-transmitters at different times.
- Any particular neuron only ever releases the same set of neuro-transmitters.
- Any particular neuron only ever releases one or more members of a defined set of neuro-transmitters.
Each item in the list of "neuron types releasing two or more neurotransmitters at the same time" needs a ref. --Philcha (talk) 11:07, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is anyone doing anything here? The article's history shows no significant edits since my last comment. --Philcha (talk) 14:00, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Urggh, I missed your last comment completely -- presumably via the "Dec 25 effect". I want to look over what you wrote, but am responding quickly to let you know that I'm paying attention. Looie496 (talk) 20:37, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suspected that - so I posted a reminder instead of "no response - fail". I'd be grateful if you could move it along, as I've got too many half-finished reviews. --Philcha (talk) 21:13, 15 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would fail this GA application for a number of reasons. The most prominent one is that it does not fulfill the WP:MOS criteria. ie the information is not organized in to different section such as history, definition... there are info in lists, and there are grammatical errors "Examples of neuron types releasing two or more neurotransmitters at the same time and include", I am having trouble figuring out what dale's principle is. It is not mentioned in the first parahraph.

Re apply when these issues are corrected. Cheers. --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:17, 18 January 2009 (UTC) - - - - - - please put review comments / responses above this line - - - - - -[reply]