Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/G. Ledyard Stebbins

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G. Ledyard Stebbins[edit]

Biography for one the the important writers of the modern evolutionary synthesis, covers all the currently available biographical information on the subject and hopefully provides an overview of his ideas without alienating non-biologists.--Peta 02:38, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Weak Object. The text is very thick, but manageable. I can't think of a better way to rewrite it. Anyway, the legacy section is a bit short. Very good article though. RyanGerbil10 (Drop on in!) 05:21, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Want to make an actionable objection :) I've moved some stuff into the legacy section, but his contribution to scientific thought is his major legacy and that is covered.--Peta 05:35, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sorry if I was unclear. I wasn't objecting on prose density. Even though it's dense, it can't be redone any better, so kudos to you. See, in my time zone, 05:21 UTC is 12:21 AM, so sometimes I'm a bit unclear. If the legacy section can't be further expanded, then no issues remain, so consequently, I Support. RyanGerbil10 (Drop on in!) 18:09, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support (although I should declare that I copy-edited this one a while back). Interesting topic, nicely put together. The article says a lot about the experience of being a brilliant scientist in the 20th century. Tony 13:10, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Beautiful. Clean references, excellent lead, no link farm, concise TOC, and brilliant prose. I would like to see some things referenced, though. I can't determine which source supports the details on his personal life, school life, CV, bio, etc. If you can reference some of those statements, I'll support. And, for an exceedingly trivial comment, would you mind putting the Categories in alphabetical order? Sandy 14:36, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The reference point is disingenuous, and in the vein of please provide a reference that the sky is blue. There are no points of contention and only one person has written extensively on his life, and to provide 15 inline links to that article instead of one general reference is not worthwhile for anyone.--Peta 00:59, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • As stated, the point was not disingenuous, and I'll be glad to support once the article is thoroughly referenced. The link you provided above results in a dead link for me, so I am unable to verify its content. As a random example from the top of the article, where do I find the reference for this content:
        • Stebbins was born in Lawrence, New York, the youngest of three children. His parents were George Ledyard Stebbins, a wealthy real estate financier who developed Seal Harbor, Maine and helped to establish Acadia National Park, and Edith Alden Candler Stebbins; both parents were native New Yorkers and Episcopalians. Stebbins was known throughout his life as Ledyard, to distinguish himself from his father. The family encouraged their sons’ interest in natural history during their periodic journeys to Seal Harbor.
      • With named refs, it is not hard to use the same reference more than once, so that the reader knows where to find specific content. Sandy 01:27, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. It's a well-written biography that bubbles along nicely, but the article skips several beats as to his private life (what happened with the three kids? his second marriage gets suddenly mentioned at his death...) and fails to summarise his relevance to science. It doesn't matter how many books and papers he published, what was the content? What was the broad picture that emerged from his research, and how does it relate to concepts that are described in more detail elsewhere in this encyclopaedia, e.g. polyploidy, speciation. For instance, reading between the lines, it seems like he provided substantial support for the hypothesis that speciation by polyploidy underlies major adaptive radiations in plants. I'm sure there's more that could be said. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:51, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I found a date for the second marriage, but to add it eariler in the article seriously disrupts the narrative - and nothing has really be written about his married life to warrant a more prominent inclusion - discussion of the children is more trivial than encyclopedic since they all must have gone on to lead regular lives.
I have added more on the significance of his book, which really was the major work of his career, and some other bits and pieces, but as I tried to make clear in the article his stength wasn't his own reseach, it was the synthesis of ideas from the work of others.--Peta 02:19, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'll just pick on two examples of recent changes that you've made to explain what I mean:
In particular the book argues for the role of adaptive radiation in the diversification of the angiosperms and the usefulness of applying out current understanding of species' genetics and ecology to inform us about the evolution of ancient species.
Good because it goes into some detail, but still vague. Better would be "the book argues that".
explains how research on polyploidy, chromosome size and number can shed light on evolutionary processes in plants.
Again, you're phrasing things in a "meta" sort of way. Now we know what the paper is about, but we have no idea what it says! Suggestion: "explains howsuggested that". Does this make sense? - Samsara (talk • contribs) 09:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The difficulty here is that Stebbins can up with a lot of theories and wrote lots of reviews - to present that research as fact isn't correct. He also wrote on such a breadth of subjects here that discussing them all in a biographical article would be seriously counterproductive. I've fixed the instances you mention, but to be honest I'm not really sure what you want here.--Peta 00:11, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not talking about presenting things as fact. Just tell us what he says in those papers. Outline the frameworks he developed. Whatever it was, tell us the content. Same example again:
explains how research on polyploidy, chromosome size and number can be used to study evolutionary processes in plants.
Better would be: established the causal connection between the evolution of polyploidy, chromosome size and number. For instance, ...
Any biography of a scientist has to clearly show his notability, his contribution to the field. Maybe he did write a lot of reviews, but clearly there are distinct ideas contained therein, and these should be described. As the article is now, I don't get a very distinct sense of what he contributed, what the commonality, the direction of his body of work was. Maybe he was just a vague dabbler who jumped on any new paradigm for a little while. If that's the case, the article should make this clear. At the moment, like someone said, it says a lot about being a scientist. It doesn't, however, say a lot about G. Ledyard Stebbins. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 22:56, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Another example:
synthesized the literature on polyploidy, concluding that polyploidy had been most important in developing large, complex and widespread genera.
It's woolly, and I can see that it's difficult to summarise in one sentence. I'd try something like, In examining the patterns of polyploidisation and adaptive radiation, Stebbins found large genera to contain more independent polyploidisation events than expected by chance, and ... (made some suggestions about establishing whether some plants are more prone to polyploidisation, or whether polyploidisation simply helps in diversifying? Not having read the paper, I'm just guessing that he might have discussed something along these lines.) - Samsara (talk • contribs) 23:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I really don't know what you want. I'm not going to make false assertions about his work. He came up with ideas based on what he knew at them time. Those ideas continue to direct how research is done - that is how theories work. I think that is clear in the article.--Peta 01:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm so deeply disappointed. I'd honestly hoped you might understand. It just seems so imperceivable that you would have read all of those biographies and learnt nothing. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 00:32, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
? Mabye, since I am clearly dense, you could either spell out the problem clearly, or help to fix it.--Peta 11:12, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object at the moment. Reading this, I still don't think it really lays out why he was notable. In the introduction, it says "who is widely regarded as one of the leading evolutionary biologists and botanists of the 20th century." but never really says why. One sentence here giving a clue about why he is regarded so highly would be helpful. Instead, one has to read all the way down to legacy to get an overview. Also, the red link in the middle of the article for polyploid complex is a little disturbing, especially if it is as important as the surrounding text and hinted-at importance of G. Ledyard Stebbins would indicate. Last, I realize this man did a lot of work. However the descpritions of it gloss over what the importance of most of it is. It says he does things, but never really makes it clear why they are or were important. Obviously this man's work is what made him notable in the first place, so better descriptions that show its importance to biology or botany would be useful.pschemp | talk 02:15, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • You seem to have missed that he 1. developed the first comprehensive synthesis of plant evolution and 2. that his book was a major contribution to modern evolutionary synthesis.; both of which are there in the lead and expanded on further in the article. Futher red links are not a criteria for FAC - but I plan to write that article later today anyway.--Peta 02:23, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Nope, I didn't miss those, I'm saying that just those phrases are not enough to make it clear. Why is the first comprehensive synthesis of plant evolution important? And why was his contribution important? You have focused almost exclusively on the details, and they need to be there, but the umbrella explaining why they are are important is missing. Just giving details later doesn't tell me why why he is important in the overall scheme of science. The overall relation is not stated explicitly, its just barely hinted at. You can't expect the reader to be able to make those kind of general inferences. Relate it to the big picture please. I'm also aware that redlinks are not an automatic disqualifier but if its important concept it just looks bad to be red.pschemp | talk 02:55, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Myself and several other commenters don't think this is an issue.--Peta 02:45, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Interesting, well-referenced, and comprehensive. SlimVirgin (talk) 03:23, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: I'm not sure what the above objectors are missing. It seemed pretty clear to me what the claims were for fame and importance of the figure. I'm so far from science as to be a litgeek, and yet I understood that his work on speciation was pivotal to all subsequent developments. This is in addition to his work as a public educator. I understand that the chronological biographical approach puts off the major breakthrough until it actually occurred in life, and there aren't signpost phrases pointing all other achievements to it, but that is certainly not universally desirable, nor is it a matter for objection. Well done. Geogre 02:29, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object - with a heavy heart, I must object. I don't understand "Some genera, such as Crepis, have a complex of reproductive forms that center on sexual diploids that have also given rise to polyploids; sometimes, as in Crepis, these are apomictic polyploids. Apomictic polyploids are able to perpetuate unbalanced polyploid types, such as triploids and pentatetraploids, which would be sterile if they had to sexually reproduce." - Ta bu shi da yu 12:35, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I removed the stuff about apomixis, and unbalanced polyploid types, it's unnecessary detail. Thanks.--Peta 00:41, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I get the impression that monographs and papers are similar: should they be in quotes or italicized? I see "Types of polyploids: their classification and significance" and "The significance of polyploidy in plant evolution" but The American Species of Crepis: their interrelationships and distribution as affected by polyploidy and apomixis. Also, the spacing around dashes isn't consistent. Will look at this more later. --Spangineeres (háblame) 02:43, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm not sure about the convention for italics and monographs, sometimes monographs are really long papers in a journal other times, like the Babcocks and Stebbins work, they are stand alone volumes.--Peta 03:09, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, if it's a stand along work, it should probably be italicized. No problem. The article looks fine to me. Support. --Spangineeres (háblame) 16:20, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support for meeting all criteria (and deserving of more of them). Outriggr 23:52, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Well done. :) - Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:08, 17 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Well fixed. pschemp | talk 17:39, 17 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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