Talk:Félix Archimède Pouchet

Félix Archimède Pouchet was a Natural sciences good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
June 25, 2017	Good article nominee	Not listed

A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on March 15, 2017.

The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that in the mid-1800s, French scientist Félix Archimède Pouchet believed air itself was able to generate life?

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Untitled

I plan to elaborate more on the Pasteur vs. Pouchet debate about spontaneous generation and also to talk about some other contributions Pouchet made. Brendanjhong (talk) 16:48, 1 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Brendanjhong. Peer reviewers: Samuelkou.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 21:57, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Overall, this article is very well done and organized so most of my critiques are small substantive stuff. First, the debate between Pouchet and Pasteur inherently has a lot of terms and concepts that a reader wouldn't know. So maybe defining germ theory, or spontaneous generation, or giving some background to who Pasteur was would be a good idea to give the reader some context. You could also just link those terms to their respective Wikipedia pages, which could be easier. Second, there were some information given that kind of leaves some unanswered questions. For example, you name the age in the beginning of the section; is there a significance to that? You also mention that Pouchet shifted interest to spontaneous generation but never mentioned what he shifted from. In that same paragraph, you mention that he did two experiments to the French Academy of Science, but never explicitly stated what they were that proved his theory (I think you mention one later in the paragraph, but it could be made a little more clear what they were). Again, overall a good job. I especially liked how the article was strictly chronologically organized, which allows the reader to get a timeline of the debate. Samuelkou (talk) 04:04, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Samuel. Thank you for the feedback. When it comes to providing more information to reader on foreign concepts, I put hyperlinks in those words so that the readers can look up what those concepts mean on their own volition. There is not a specific reason why I included their ages, but I think it just provides context to the situation of the debate. Pouchet was much older than Pasteur and this may correlate with his support in spontaneous generation, which seemed like an unrefined and older concept at the time. However, I did not find a source that supported the fact that the public was ageist towards Pouchet so I did mention it. I did mention what Pouchet was first interested in before spontaneous generation in the “Early career” section. I did not mention Pouchet’s two experiments because I believe that it would have provided fluffy information that was not really needed to understand the whole debate. However, I will take your consideration to heart because it could provide more information in the way Pouchet thought and how he approached things. Thank you again! Brendanjhong (talk) 16:06, 26 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions for Improvement

Hello! This is overall a very informative article, especially on Pouchet’s place in the scientific world of his time period. I don’t have any major suggestions for improvement, just some small things to add that would give a more complete view of his life. These don’t have anything to do with his historical significance, just information that is usually included in a biography. First of all, which university did he attend? Also, maybe add sections on his personal life, death and/or legacy. This will help the page from reading too much like just a discussion on his clash with Pasteur.

Finally, “cytology” (last word in the lead paragraph) should have a hyperlink. Thanks for reading, hope this helps!BaiCaiXue (talk) 03:51, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. Thanks for the helpful feedback! There are few sources that describe the biographical information of Pouchet, but I definitely will try to look for sources that contain this information because it would give a more complete view of his life like what you said. Also, that “cytology” part was not part of what I wrote, but I can add the hyperlink. Thanks again! Brendanjhong (talk) 16:07, 26 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]