Talk:The eclipse of Darwinism/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 01:45, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:45, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Images are appropriately tagged; sources are reliable. I'm going to be a bit more reluctant than usual to copyedit here as I'm not knowledgeable about the subject matter, so I'll post some nitpicking wording queries.

There appears to be a typo in the title of Larson's book: it should "of a Scientific Theory".

Fixed.

"Julian Huxley used the phrase "the eclipse of Darwinism" to describe the state of affairs prior to what he called the modern synthesis, when evolution was widely accepted in scientific circles but relatively few biologists believed that natural selection was its primary mechanism." Can we rephrase this so there's no possibility of the reader taking what follows "the modern synthesis, when..." as the definition of the modern synthesis? Perhaps "Julian Huxley used the phrase "the eclipse of Darwinism"[a] to describe the state of affairs prior to what he called the modern synthesis. During the "eclipse", evolution was widely accepted in scientific circles but relatively few biologists believed that natural selection was its primary mechanism."

Done.

"or at least as of relatively minor importance": suggest "or at least of".

Done.

"While there had been multiple explanations of evolution including vitalism, catastrophism, and structuralism through the 19th century": should this perhaps by "latter half of the 19th century"? Or was there enough academic discussion of evolution prior to The Origin of Species for this to be true as stated? I see some of this in the "Theistic evolution" section but not enough to be sure this is the right time period to cite.

Removed.

We say in the lead both that theistic evolution was a "major alternative to natural selection...in play at the turn of the 20th century" and that it "had largely disappeared from the scientific literature by the end of the 19th century".

Fixed.

"While there had been multiple explanations of evolution including vitalism, catastrophism, and structuralism through the 19th century": these aren't mentioned in the body of the article.

Removed, the link to the alternatives article is sufficient.

I'm not sure how useful File:Alternatives to Darwinism.svg is. I think it needs a fair amount of supporting text, which this article doesn't provide, to clarify the structure and implications of the diagram; and it includes theories such as vitalism which you only mention in the lead.

Removed.

"Lamarck also believed, as did many others at the time": can we give at least an approximate date instead of "at that time"?

Done.

You define recapitulation theory at a later, rather than at the first, mention.

Fixed.

"Packard also wrote a book about Lamarck and his writings." With no more detail than this I don't think this tells the reader anything; suggest cutting.

Removed.

"but he felt that internal laws of growth determine which characteristics would be acquired and guided the long term direction of evolution down certain paths": I think this would be better with "determined" to match the tense of the rest of the clause.

Done.

"Mayr wrote that by the end of the synthesis": not sure what "end" refers to here; we're still in the period of the modern synthesis, aren't we?

No; the mention earlier in that paragraph says "the early 20th century modern synthesis". Huxley was unwise to use the word "modern", as everybody reads that word to include themselves, but he meant the full phrase, not an open-ended process.
After rereading I think this is OK. I originally took "modern synthesis" to mean "the way we currently think about Darwinism" but following the links I see it refers specifically to the mid-20th-century understanding. I'm going to pass this, but you might consider a parenthetical definition in the first sentence of the lead, since as you say "modern" is going to be misinterpreted. Something like "Julian Huxley used the phrase "the eclipse of Darwinism"[a] to describe the state of affairs prior to what he called the "modern synthesis" (the mid-20th-century understanding of evolution)." Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:05, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also, not a GA issue, but you have quite a few duplicate links. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:28, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Removed as highlighted by tool. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:27, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Issues addressed; I've left one comment above but the article isn't wrong on that point so passing. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:05, 5 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]