Talk:Baldwin effect

Baldwin effect has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: August 17, 2020. (Reviewed version).

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GA Review

Latest comment: 4 years ago6 comments2 people in discussion

This review is transcluded from Talk:Baldwin effect/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Larry Hockett (talk · contribs) 16:39, 10 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

I'm happy to tackle this review. I hope to provide some initial feedback this week. Thanks to the nominator for his continued interest in improving the coverage of science on Wikipedia. Larry Hockett (Talk) 16:39, 10 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Hi, many thanks for taking this on. The topic has been thought of as doubtful, though not as hard as genetic assimilation, but is now well accepted. It's quite richly cited, but happily not too long: I have striven for the essence of the subject, saying much in few words. I'm always willing to adjust articles by working collaboratively with GA reviewers, and can respond promptly when needed to sort out any issues. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:37, 10 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

Thanks again, Ian. This was a pleasure to read. Many of my suggestions here would not create barriers to GA status, so feel free to let me know if disagree with some of these.

Thank you!

I did spot checks to assess for issues with sources and with close paraphrasing, and I found no problems.
- Noted.

I think we should include a hatnote to Baldwin effect (astronomy) per WP:SIMILAR.
- Done.

In the chart at the top of the article, it seems that Waddington's source image is not in the public domain. If I understand correctly, we can't use fair use images to create charts like this.
- Removed.

At the beginning of the body, I think we should consider not linking [[United States|American]] since it is a major geographic feature/nationality.
- Removed.

For Robert Richards and Daniel Dennett, I wonder if a word or two of introduction would be good (ex: As science historian Robert Richards explains). Where other people are mentioned, their occupations can be inferred from the context, but with the quotes from these two, I'm not sure that's true. People with more than an amateur interest in science will likely have heard of them, but (sadly) the lay reader may not know them.
- Glossed.

The phrase on Stigler's law doesn't seem supported by the Noble and Noble source, so I think it might be considered editorializing.
- Fixed.

A page number for the Huxley reference will help the reader.
- Added ref.

Near the end of the Controversy section, "have of late become 'Baldwin Boosters'" - missing punctuation after this instance of Boosters, and I wonder if we should mention the year of the Depew quote (seems to be 2003) since "of late" is a relative time reference. Same question just a bit later when we refer to Dennett and "recent work"; should we clarify that it is work from the early 2000s?
- Fixed.

In looking over Modern synthesis (20th century), I thought it implied that Baldwin's work influenced Ivan Schmalhausen and the development of stabilizing selection, but this source seems to indicate that Schmalhausen viewed the Baldwin effect only as "a pedagogical device", so I don't think we need to add anything here.

- Noted.

Very minor points near the end of the entry:

Consider removing the last wikilink to Daniel Dennett, since he is already linked twice in the body, including in the quote just prior to that sentence.
- Removed.

The See Also section is inconsistently formatted (lowercase vs uppercase letter to start the phrase after the link). I'm not sure we need Lamarckism again since it is so prominently linked (in the lead), but I don't feel strongly about it.
- Removed Lamarckism; annotations are non-local but fixed anyway.

Different chapters of the Weber and Depew book are cited several times, and the book title is capitalized inconsistently (see what are now refs 6 and 12 versus refs 18 and 19).
- Fixed.

I think that's all I have. Thank you for your continued excellent work! Larry Hockett (Talk) 01:04, 16 August 2020 (UTC)Reply

I think we're all done now. Many thanks for the review. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:03, 16 August 2020 (UTC)Reply
- Thank you. Passing this. Larry Hockett (Talk) 20:04, 17 August 2020 (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 (references): 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, where possible and appropriate. a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):
Overall: Pass/Fail:
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