Talk:History of speciation

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A fact from History of speciation appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 12 February 2018 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the history of speciation largely began with Charles Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Did you know archive/2018/February. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/History of speciation.

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Needs work

So, I rushed to get this article out as soon as possible. It still needs a lot of work and expansion. Here are my thoughts on what is needed:

It is missing the history of each mode (and even mechanism) of speciation. Each has its own detailed history. I only included a brief summary of sympatric speciation. Reinforcement is relatively comprehensive. Missing ecological speciation history, parapatric speciation history, detailed hybrid/polyploidy speciation (which is huge), and the history of the various isolating mechanisms.
Should these be their own sections?
Missing history of speciation research in the fossil record. Once I get around to writing speciation in the fossil record, this could be added.
I had trouble organizing the text sections. Is the way it is best? I feel like its scattered and does not read well. Any ideas?
Contemporary work section is garbage. Needs major expansion.
The lead is atrocious. Please rewrite if you feel interested in doing so.

Help wanted! I have research resources if you want/need them. Andrew Z. Colvin • Talk 23:09, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Well, good idea to get it started. There is one phrase however which rings alarm bells: "promoted by Ernst Mayr". The section does read somewhat as a Mayr-fest, and he did indeed promote, heavily. He is a big figure but not a neutral witness: he was not only involved but had a line to shoot, a political message, namely that this synthesis thing was done and dusted, incontrovertible, and his side understood it completely. It is now clear that this was far from the truth, as the modern synthesis article demonstrates. We will need to be careful to distinguish claims from historical reality. A citation can easily show that Mayr claimed X on date D: we may call that a 'fact'. What such a citation does not show is that X was true, either on date D or at any other time. So the first countermeasure is to report claims not truths about speciation. The second countermeasure is to report the claims by other people, with dates and citations, throughout the period. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:20, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

I went ahead and changed that phrase to something a little more palatable. I agree it is heavily focused on Mayr, and rightly so, due to his enormous influence. However, there was definitely bias about the level of support. I am by no means a scholar on this topic, so some of the intracacies are probably missed. I do know that the speciation biologist James Mallet is a strong critic of some of Mayrs conceptions, ideas, and opinions. It is possible that some of his ideas could act as a countermeasure. I avoided it in fear of giving undue weight to a minority position. Andrew Z. Colvin • Talk 16:02, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Jim Mallet is pretty mainstream, and he's far from the only critic of Mayr generally, though he may be the best source on this topic. I don't really agree with your "and rightly so", as Mayr was definitely wrong on some points; citing him for truth rather than 'the fact that Mayr said that then' misses the point that others, especially later, thought otherwise and found evidence to contradict him. Further, Mayr is especially unreliable (aka, wrong) on things like the early geneticists and mutationism, where his ideas were frankly revisionist: he wanted to paint them as primitive and in the dark ages of genetics and evolution, to contrast with his ideas of a new synthesis which spread light, truth, etc etc. Therefore, we should use other sources on such topics. Mayr is a RS on Mayr's work, a doubtful source on the rest of the modern synthesis, and unusable on pre-synthesis history. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:17, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

So I guess the most important part is, which parts of the article are disputable and should be removed or rewritten to provide what is true, and not what is “true” according to Mayr? Andrew Z. Colvin • Talk 21:10, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

As I said, when Mayr reports on what he published, he's telling the truth. When he claims he and his side were totally right and their synthesis was the last word in evolutionary biology, he was exaggerating, and many awkward facts that don't fit that pattern have been found by others since. When he blackens the name of early geneticists and mutationists, he was guilty of revisionism to make his side look better by contrast. He was a great researcher but a poor historian. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:42, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

I went ahead and tossed the mutationist section as it was based heavily on Mayr. It is better to remove it than to have false information. I expanded on Darwin's views of speciation, attempting to give equal weight to the various opinions. It appears that Coyne and Orr strongly support Mayr's ideas, as evidenced by their writings. I included Mallet for balance. Andrew Z. Colvin • Talk 23:37, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Title change

I don't entirely agree about the title change (page move) by User:Calliopejen1. The previous title was shorter and not at all confusing. Few references refer to the topic as such and simply state the history of speciation. I don't think many people would get confused thinking that the article was about speciation since the the beginning of life. I moved it back for now. Andrew Z. Colvin • Talk 23:15, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

I found the title to be pretty bizarre, myself. I came through from the DYK hook "...that the history of speciation largely began with Charles Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species?" thinking that the hook was badly written and inaccurate. (Obviously, speciation existed long before Charles Darwin wrote about it.) A related issue that compounded the DYK blurb is that the first sentence of the article is grammatically incorrect. ("The history of speciation — the scientific study of how species evolve to become new species —...") Speciation is not the scientific study of how species evolve, as the parenthetical indicates. Just decided to be bold and fix this error. Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:12, 13 February 2018 (UTC) For most "History of X" articles in the world of science, X is a human activity or a word meaning the study of something. But I admit that this is not a universal rule. E.g. History of energy, History of fluorine. Interested in others' thoughts. Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:08, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

I agree that the lead sentence is a bit inaccurate. The phrase within the em dashes was to give a brief description of the word speciation in an attempt to help readers understand without having to click the speciation link. It could certainly use some improvement in that regard. As for the title, it is of course the history of the study of speciation but the literature does not typically refer to it this way. History of speciation is concise and a little less clunky, plus it does coincide with the history articles you mentioned above. The biggest factor, in my opinion, is that the long title doesn't help with search-ability and readability. Nevertheless, I did definitely consider these thoughts when developing the article and decided to choose the simpler article title. :) Andrew Z. Colvin • Talk 00:23, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

I added an about template similar to the History of fluorine article. Is this an agreeable change? Input from others is welcome. Andrew Z. Colvin • Talk 00:29, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

I think this is significantly improved. I'd still prefer it my way, but I don't feel strongly enough to pursue the issue! Interesting article, btw! Calliopejen1 (talk) 01:16, 14 February 2018 (UTC)

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