Template:Did you know nominations/Spontaneous generation

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 02:13, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Spontaneous generation

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... that spontaneous generation is the superseded scientific theory that believed living creatures could arise from nonliving matter and that such processes were commonplace and regular? Source: In the article.
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/A Sun

Improved to Good Article status by Chiswick Chap (talk). Nominated by Onegreatjoke (talk) at 22:04, 7 January 2023 (UTC).

Reviewing. - Aoidh (talk) 20:10, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

Cited: - no
Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Earwig lists a 40.8% match but the matching site is very clearly copying from the Wikipedia article, as it starts by saying "according to Wikipedia". There's a heavy emphasis on quotes in the Aristotle section but the translation is from 1910 and as far as I can tell that text would now be public domain in the UK where it was published (not that it's part of the DYK review but a link to D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson in the refs that he translated might be good?). @Onegreatjoke: There is an issue with the hook, given that it's just the lede sentence and there's no clear citation attached to it. "Source: In the article." isn't clear enough, such sources should be in the article but you need to point out specifically which source verifies this. Per WP:DYKCRIT's "Cited hook" point b, there's no reference at the end of that statement, which is necessary if it's going to be used as a DYK hook. Can you either suggest a new hook or provide a reference for that statement in the article? - Aoidh (talk) 20:40, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

@Aoidh: Here's some ideas

ALT1: ... that Anaximander was likely the first western thinker to propose that life developed spontaneously from nonliving matter?
ALT2: ... that Louis Pasteur's 1859 experiment is widely seen as having settled the question of spontaneous generation, disproving the theory? Onegreatjoke (talk) 22:13, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Also another thing i'd like to clarify is that you shouldn't use this

symbol if you still the nomination can still go. this

is supposed to tell that the nomination should be rejected, not that it's still being worked on. Instead use this

. Onegreatjoke (talk) 22:39, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

You're right about the tick mark, I've adjusted that, slipped my mind that status=no in that template wasn't "no it's not ready yet". I'll look at the rest when I can (power is currently out here so I'm limited) - Aoidh (talk) 23:00, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

ALT1 and ALT2 are both good and sources are in the article, though I have to admit favoring the Pasteur hook because I vividly remember learning about that series of experiments in school as a small child and being absolutely fascinated by it. I did make some small formatting changes to the hooks so that they'd be easier to move into the prep area. - Aoidh (talk) 05:25, 13 January 2023 (UTC)