Wikipedia:Featured article review/Cladistics/archive1

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

The article was removed 22:24, 21 January 2007.

[edit] Cladistics

[edit] Review commentary

Promoted as "brilliant prose". Message left at Evolutionary biology. Gzkn 07:29, 14 December 2006 (UTC) Additional messages at Amphibians and Reptiles, Gastropods, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Aranae, Opabinia regalis, and Samsara. Sandy (Talk) 23:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe this article does not meet 1(c), 2(a), 2(c) and 4 sections of FA requirements.--Crzycheetah 06:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment To Make Things Easier, these are the specific points:

• 1(c) "Factually accurate" means that claims are verifiable against reliable sources and accurately present the related body of published knowledge. Claims are supported with specific evidence and external citations (see verifiability and reliable sources); this involves the provision of a "References" section in which sources are set out and, where appropriate, complemented by inline citations. See citing sources for information on when and how extensively references are provided and for suggestions on formatting references; for articles with footnotes or endnotes, the meta:cite format is recommended.
• 2(a) a concise lead section that summarizes the entire topic and prepares the reader for the higher level of detail in the subsequent sections;
• 2(c) a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents (see section help).
• 4 is of appropriate length, staying focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

--Cody.Pope 17:10, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. The article needs to be cited. With the effort of knowledgeable editors, this one should be salvageable. Sandy (Talk) 23:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• Here are some suggestions to improve the article:

1. I think the distinction between cladistics and phenetics should be addressed a second time once plesiomorphic and apomorphic terms are introduced. Cladistics is interested in synapomorphies. Phenetics does not distinguish between the two. An example of how the two could come up with a different tree would also help.
2. I'm a bit unhappy with the discussion of what it means to be basal. I completely agree that usage of the term primarily refers to a taxon-poor clade that branches off early. I also think that the term gets used in reference to the ingroup, the taxon sampling, and the question being asked. For example, gibbons will commonly be said to be basal among the hominoids, yet there are 13 species of gibbons in four genera and only 7 species of great apes (also 4 genera). In this case, the research question usually being posed is really about a focus organism (us) and relationships among the gibbons is less important in that particular discussion. Bats and insectivorans are basal to the rest of the Laurasiatheria in spite of the fact that over 50% of described laurasiatherian species are bats and 20% are insectivorans. The research question is how are bats, insectivorans, carnivorans, pangolins, perissodactyls, and cetartiodactyls. From that perspective, bats and insectivorans to qualify as basal to the cetferungulates. Being "primitive" shouldn't qualify a group as basal (although it probably is used that way in some instances). Bats fly, echolocate, and look nothing like the ancestor of the Laurasiatheria.
3. The distinction between synapomorphy and autapomorphy should be clarified.
4. The second paragraph of the section titled "Cladistic methods" is confusing. Plesiomorphies were present in the last common ancestor of group discussed. Apomorphies arose subsequent to the last common ancestor of the group discussed. To say that an apomorphy was present in the last common ancestor of the ingroup is false. A synapomorphy was present in the last common ancestor of the clade it characterizes (and may have arisen anywhere along the branch leading to that clade). Autapomorphies are also a type of apomorphy and they weren't present in the last common ancestor of any two taxa in the analysis.
5. Eliminate the use of "we" in the 4th paragraph of the same section.
6. I think at least 50% of the field would consider maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods to be both Hennigian and cladistic. They are still constructed on the basis of synapomorphies, they just incorporate information about how characters evolve and attempt to incorporate the potential for additional evolution hidden in a final parsimony analysis. They are definitely not phenetic methods. I'm also amazed that there still isn't an article on maximum likelihood in phylogenetics.
7. The total evidence approach advocated in the 6th paragraph isn't universally accepted. I think it's safe to say that >50% of the field would agree, but there are those who argue that a little bit of quality data is better than a lot of noisy data or even a little bit of quality data + some noisy data. Most (but not all) do agree that data where homology is questionable should be excluded. That should be addressed in the paragraph as well and I'm not all that comfortable with the behavior example (without expansion and clarification) for that reason. That statement that molecular, morphological, etc. not are all equal is definitely an opinion and is definitely disputed. Homoplasy is more common in morphological data? Are we sure about that?
8. Paragraph 7. A small point, but cladistics does assume that evolution is bifurcating as opposed to hybridizing, reticulate, or having lateral transfer.
9. In my opinion, the "Cladistic classification" section can reasonably stay, but seesm to ramble on as if it was written by several editors who had differing opinions and tried to jump back and forth in such a way as to make it sum up to NPOV. I'm not happy with the notion that about half of the text of a featured article on cladistics is spent discussing the PhyloCode and Linnean hierarchy.
10. There is a subtle, but important philosophical difference between cladistics and parsimony. This article should address that clearly.
11. The "see also" is an odd list. It should have links to phenetics, parsimony, maximum likelihood (phylogenetics), maybe Bayesian (phylogenetics), as well as some of what's already there.

--Aranae 02:27, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

To address your last point only, all those terms are already linked in the body of the article, which is probably why they are not repeated. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Copied these suggestions to the talk page for easy reference. I hope someone besides me has an interest in working on this, because I know nothing about the morphological side of things. Opabinia regalis 03:24, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to see this article rescued, but the chances of me doing any substantive work on it before the holidays are approaching zero - I haven't had the time to gather sources together and won't have any relevant books with me while I'm out of town next week. I don't really deal with FAR much - if this review period can be extended until early January, that would be great; if not, maybe it'll get a new star eventually. Opabinia regalis 06:17, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Status: able to do any work now Opabinia? Marskell 07:40, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

See this thread - after waffling a bit on this, I've concluded that my efforts alone would not be enough. The article as it stands has serious oversimplification problems and is not comprehensive, and cladistics is far enough outside my field that I don't have the necessary familiarity with the relevant literature to write a balanced and up-to-date article. (Also, I admit I don't like the subject very much :) I did leave a message for User:Felsenst, who is an expert on the subject and has previously expressed an interest in the article, but any work that might be done may not be in time for this FAR. As I said on my talk page, I'll try to make this article not suck, but that's not the same as bring to FA standard. Opabinia regalis 03:06, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I have replied on User talk:Felsenst with a rant on what's wrong with the article. But what's right about the article is that, although quite muddled, it thus fairly reflects the field! My own views are highly controversial to most people who identify themselves as cladists, and are regarded as borderline-crackpot and dismissable. So I am not a good person to edit this article. Thanks for thinking of me, but ... Felsenst 13:29, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are factual accuracy (1a), citations (1c), LEAD (2a), TOC (2c), and focus (4). Marskell 09:35, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove, no improvement whatsoever. --Crzycheetah 19:41, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove Needs inline citations still. LuciferMorgan 12:46, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove. Per above.--Yannismarou 18:12, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
• Tim, factual accuracy is Criterion 1c, I think (could be beautifully written rubbish!) Remove as per previous reviewers; really needs an expert or two. Tony 23:45, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

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 review. No further edits should be made to this page.