Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Evolutionary history of life/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 16:20, 3 August 2007.

Evolutionary history of life[edit]

I think the article is written in a very comprehensive manner. Its is throughly cited. The article also follows Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Though the article is very recently created (18th July 2007) but it do meet the FAC requirements. thanks, Sushant gupta 11:48, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

comment first cursory check the lead needs to expand 1 paragraph for article of this size isnt sufficient see WP:LEAD Gnan garra 13:50, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done i have improved the lead section. can you please justify your comments. Sushant gupta 10:33, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

- Question Precambrian is only referred to in one sentence yet the article indicates its substantial period. It not linked to the article, I saw the word and wondered what more I could find because the section on cambrian period didnt mention it. Gnan garra 14:17, 25 July 2007 (UTC) retract must be late sorry. Think I better leave it there tonight Gnan garra 14:19, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Done To explain the above, links need to be at the first instance of the subject/concept this is where I got confused(being tired didnt help) as it wasnt linked in the first instance. Gnan garra 12:46, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Done section Early signs of life this sentence If life arose on Earth, the timing of this event is highly speculative—perhaps it arose around 4 billion years ago.[8] if it arose? why speculate on already known concept. Why not just say Life arose on Earth around 4 billion years ago, though the timing is highly speculative. Also prose is weak in this section I've broke it down to smaller paragraphs the first paragraph could also be broken into two as well. Gnan garra 12:56, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Reluctant oppose. First off, let me congratulate for taking on so massive a subject and doing a good job of it. Tackling high level concepts and subjects is no easy task and there is a very passable article here for your efforts. I have been poking bird for the best part of 6 months and appreciate the effort involved in the task. That said, there are major structural and emphasis issues in the article that need to be addressed before this can be awarded FA status.
Done Vertebrate/animal bias - understandable, since this is where a lot of attention is focused in the media and even within science. Nether the less this needs to be addressed - we need the evolutionary story of all life, not just the big things. Just off the top of my head fungi gets one mention in the whole article, one, and fungi is one of the kingdoms. About 500 million years ago, plants and fungi colonized the land, and were soon followed by arthropods and other animals. No mention is made of when it arose, where it came from and what it did afterwards. According to the article on fungi or some time after the Permian-Triassic extinction event, a fungal spike, detected as an extraordinary abundance of fungal spores in sediments formed shortly after this event, indicates that they were the dominant life form during this period—nearly 100% of the fossil record available from this period, this is unmentioned here and is quite relevant. Similarly hardly any mention is made of the origin and early evolution of insects (no approximate date is given).
Done Evolution of Mammals - another example of misplaced emphasis - this deserves its own article (it may already have one) but even though it concerns our ancestors it is still too much for one class to have its own large section. Especially given the lack of attention given to other classes, phyla and kingdoms.
Done The development of eukaryotes and the engulfing of chloroplasts and mitochondria deserves way more attention than it gets. This is arguably more important to life than any of the extinction events.
Done No mention of the evolution of bilateral and radial symmetry, or segmentation in animals.
Done No mention of the evolution of sexual reproduction. The omission of sexual reproduction is arguably reason to oppose all on its own.

The evolution of sexual reproducution is immensely important in the history of life, and has arisen in spite of the obvious benefits of asexual reproduction. Most animals do it, as do plants, fungi, even bacteria. It needs addressing.

Done A great deal is made of some extinction events but others are completely omitted. Why? I think that there is also a little too much emphasis on these events rather than the evolutionary breakthroughs.

From the article on extinction events The classical "Big Five" mass extinctions identified by Jack Sepkoski and David M. Raup in their 1982 paper are widely agreed upon as some of the most significant: End Ordovician, Late Devonian, End Permian, End Triassic, and End Cretaceous. There are the big five, yet you only deal with three of these.

Done Some structural problems; Second paragraph of Paleozoic life begins At the start of the era, life was confined to bacteria, algae, sponges and a variety of somewhat enigmatic forms known collectively as the Ediacaran fauna. A large number of body plans appeared nearly simultaneously at the start of the era -- a phenomenon known as the Cambrian Explosion. - but the previous section is all about the Cambrian explosion! Repetition and stating something as if it is a new concept when it was dealt with at length beforehand.
Done Common descent doesn't this section belong closer to the front?

I thought, as the article was originally laid out, that this would benefit from being at the begining. It seems less important now.

I don't wish for you to become discouraged, there is a great deal that is good here. It is strongly referenced, it is well thought out. It would benefit from more time, more editors, more eyes and a peer review. There are numerous good scientific reviewers and copy editors that you can approach for help; make use of them. Good luck, and I hope this helps. Sabine's Sunbird talk 06:52, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Response to some questions left on my talk page about my review;

semi-

Done*Thirdly, you are a biologist; you must be knowing the number of phylums. if i sit and write about their history even in brief it would consume a lot lot and lot of time. - I was not asking for every phyla to be discusssed, I was suggesting more balance in those discussed. And at least give more time to the other kingdoms. In the bird page I don't discuss every family of bird, but I do include a range of different familes from all across the world. The focus of the article, particularly the Life during Phanerozoic section, is highly animal orientated.

Done*Secondly, whatever points you mentioned i have addressed most of them but i haven't got the exact meaning for 4, 5 and 7th point. can you please explain them in detail. I will attempt to elaborate above.

I'll have to flat out oppose this one. There is a lot of good material there, but the fact of the existence of a fairly good article on origin of life is somewhat obscured by the lede. There are some major gaps - the three domain theory does not refer to prokaryotes, eukaryotes and viruses; viruses are not universally accepted to be life forms at all (although I lean towards that view), and the three domains are eukaryotes, prokaryotes and ARCHAEA (archaea). The virus section is fuzzy, even if the origins of viruses are indeed not very clear. The research could certainly be described more crisply. "Sex reproduction" does not exist; if anything, it's "sexual reproduction". I suggest reading the literature on the subject and reproducing (no pun intended) the jargon faithfully. Before discussing the evolution of sex, you should discuss several of the other major transitions as per Szathmary and Maynard Smith. This article will be ready eventually, but isn't yet. Addressing only the flaws that I have found will not mean that it will be ready. Have a look at some other featured articles and compare them with this candidate. That should give you quite a few good ideas. Regards. 82.71.48.158 17:33, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- PS for transitions, start here. 82.71.48.158 17:35, 1 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The section Tree of life doesn't deals with three domain systems. viruses are a part of tree of life. Sushant gupta 12:00, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Way too many uncited statements. Also, the organization seems random. The content in Evolution of life, for instance, is repeated throughout the article. Why is there a whole section on human evolution thrown in at the end? Why did you pick asymmetry and sexual reproduction as the two most important things to cover? This should be justified and explained in the text. Calliopejen1 09:11, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was asked on my talk page to elaborate. Honestly, I can't go through and say all the citations that are needed. In short, basically every sentence should have a footnote, but tons and tons do not. For instance, there is not a single reference for the entire "Life during Phanerozoic" section. Calliopejen1 12:11, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, just saw that one sentence mid-Cenozoic has a citation. Still, not nearly enough. Calliopejen1 12:13, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.