Talk:History of paleontology

message: I started this article because I thought the paleontology article did not have enough historical information. Right now it stops at the middle of the 19th century. The sections for the 2nd half (post Darwin) 19th century and the 20th century need to be filled out.
Rusty Cashman 22:26, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice work, Rusty.  One of my students is currently writing a history of geology article, which should be up by mid-December.  When that goes up, we'll have to try to cross-pollinate these two partly-overlapping topics.  Earth sciences in general, especially their history, are extremely under-represented on WP.  Maybe in the spring I'll find the time to snuggle up with Stephen Jay Gould's big book and fill out some of later stuff for this article.--ragesoss 00:35, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Article start

message: Frst off, a list of thoughts on the first read-through.
*"The past two decades have seen intensified studies of fossils from the Cambrian period, a time referred to as the Cambrian Explosion during which a burst of new animal forms appeared, including most phyla we recognize today."  - Far, far too overloaded of a sentence. Break it up.
* "As early as the 6th century BC Xenophanes of Colophon recognized that some fossil shells were remains of shellfish and indicated that what was now dry land was once under the sea. It is also well known that in one of his unpublished notebooks Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) concluded that some fossil sea shells were the remains of shellfish. However in both cases it is clear that the fossils were relatively complete remains of shellfish species that very closely resembled living species and thus were relatively easy to classify." A bit awkward.
* "As the etymology of the word fossil, which comes from the Latin for things having been dug up, indicates, the term was applied to wide variety of stone and stone like objects without regard to whether they might have an organic origin." Awkward interjection.
* ...their properties, both physical and mystical... I know what this is supposed to mean. This is because I read Stephen Jay Gould's report on it. I doubt most would. 
*17th century: You correctly use italics for the title of a work by Hooke. However, it goes on to put quotes from Hooke in italics. They should instead be in quotes, as they are not titles. 
*"William Smith, a surveyor and mining engineer, made extensive use of fossils and the principle of faunal succession to make sense of rock strata as he worked on the first geological map of England during the late 1790s and early 1800s." Faunal succession needs explained.
*"These were pioneering applications of stratigraphy." - Surely this can be better worked in, e.g. "In a pioneering application of stratigraphy, William Smith...."  Consider defining stratigraphy at some point.
*The section on "The age of reptiles" is awfully jumpy. Starts at Cuvier, for no apparent reason goes to Anning, deviates wildly off-topic to jumpt to a list of paleotologists Anning worked with, then to one of those paleontologists... there's no particular structure.
*The section on uniformitarianism is simply awful. Lyell's pioneering insights reduced to advocacy, his mistaken beliefs about the fossil record rightfully mentioned, but his later advocacy of Darwin ignored. 
*The section on Geological time scale, "Geologists such as Adam Sedgwick, and Roderick Murchison continued, despite some contentious disputes, making great advances in stratigraphy as they described new geological epochs such as the Cambrian, the Silurian, the Devonian, and the Permian. By the early 1840s much of the geologic timescale had taken shape. All three of the periods of the Mesozoic era and all the periods of the Paleozoic era except the Ordovician had been defined.[12] It remained a relative time scale with no method of assigning any of the periods absolute dates. It was understood that not only had there been an age of reptiles preceding the age of mammals, but there had a time (during the Cambrian and the Silurian) when life had been restricted to the sea, and a time (prior to the Devonian) when invertebrates had been the dominant form of animal life." is far too short. More detail, if possible.  
* In 1861 the first specimen of Archaeopteryx, an animal with both teeth and feathers and a mix of other reptilian and avian features, was discovered in a limestone quarry in Bavaria and another would be found in 1881. - odd use of tenses. And the whole bit on transitional fossils is... awkward. Reduces Darwin too much, needs more connecting text. Why do we suddenly stop seeing who discovered things? 
*Why a section on "Developments in America", and not ones on other areas? I realise that it was, and is, an important source of fossils, but it sounds like Americocentricism under that title. 
*"Some developments in the 20th century" VERY unencyclopedic title
*"The 2nd was the theory of plate tectonics..." Don't use abbreviations.
*The whole 20th century section needs expansion and reworking into as coherent of a story as is consistant with reality. Trace a few of the lines out. 
Well! That gets me to the end of the article. In many ways, this is a good article: It's well-referenced, more-or-less accurate, except by ommission - but it lacks coherence. Too many collections of facts, not enough detail, and not enough attention paid to trends. I just don't think it's ready yet. Sorry. Adam Cuerden talk 03:16, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Aye, and don't get me wrong - this is an excellent start, particularly given you seem to have done it almost entirely yourself. Just needs a bit of fixing up and it'd be well on its way to FA, not just GA. But better to mention everything, as holding back criticism is a false politeness when someone's working hard to make an article better.  Adam Cuerden talk 07:34, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well it has taken a while (I got side tracked by Alfred Russell Wallace and a couple of other wikipedia projects) but I think the issues you raised have now beend addressed. Rusty Cashman 19:26, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  GA Review 

message: Overall this article is very good and comprehensive. However, this article's Good Article promotion has been put on hold as I think there are some issues that can be resolved without a major re-write. This is how the article, as of July 17, 2007, compares against the  six good article criteria:
:1. Well written?:
::*Needs another introductory sentence to lead the reader into the history of the subject before starting on the detailed timeline in the lead. At present the transition from the second to the third sentence is too abrupt.
::*that what was now dry land was once under the sea - This is a past event, might be better as "that what was at the time dry land, had once been under the sea"
::*"land dwelling" should be hyphenated
:2. Factually accurate?:
::*"progressive order to the development of life." Not really accurate, evolution is neither progressive or orderly. Reword to something like "Life on earth had undergone constant change." This idea is reinforced later in the article with the statement "earth had a progressive history". Unless you state this idea specifically as an outmoded interpretation - to give the more modern interpretation later, it is best to avoid using it.
::*"age of reptiles/age of mammals" Nobody really uses this terminology any more as it involves the selection of one part of the life on earth for artificial elevation as more important than the rest. Prokaryotes have always formed the majority of species and plants and prokaryotes the vast majority of biomass. Large, fierce animals may be impressive, but they are quantitatively insignificant.
::*even the appearance of progression in the history of life, were illusions caused by imperfections in that record. As evidence Lyell pointed to the Stonesfield mammal, and to the fact that certain Pleistocene strata showed a mixture of extinct and still surviving species. I don't understand exactly what this means. What did he think a mix of extinct/extant fauna demonstrated?
::*"a time (prior to the Devonian) when invertebrates had been the dominant form of animal life." Invertebrates are still the dominant form of animal life. Insects, worms, corals, sponges, jellyfish and arachnids are very successful lineages and are the prominent animals in most ecosystems.
::*Extinction "killed off the dinosaurs" - Only the non-avian dinosaurs, the birds survived.
::*"statistical analysis of the fossil record that revealed the pattern and importance of mass extinction events." - Might be good to summarise in a sentence what this pattern was, since it is highlighted here.
:3. Broad in coverage?: Yes
:4. Neutral point of view?: Yes
:5. Article stability? Very
:6. Images?: Good, but a striking lead image (top, right) could be an improvement.
Please address these matters soon and then leave a note here showing how they have been resolved. After 48 hours the article should be reviewed again. If these issues are not addressed within 7 days, the article may be failed without further notice. Thank you for your excellent work so far. Tim Vickers 22:07, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I believe all the issues have been addressed completely except for 6 (lead in image) and item 2 bullet 2 (age of mammals age of reptiles). I will continue to look for an ideal lead in image for the upper right corner and I (or someone else) will find one before I consider putting this article through the FAC process. On the "age of reptiles/mammals" issue I have gotten rid of any reference to the "age of mammals" but I am not willing to jettison the phrase "age of reptiles". This is an article on the history of a science and as the "Age of Reptiles" mural in the Peabody museum demonstrates, this phrase/concept is historically important in the development of paleontology and in its poplular perception, which makes its use appropriate in this article. Nor is the phrase completely out of current use by any means as a Google search for "age of reptiles" yeilds more than 54,000 hits many of which are popular culture references such as bands and comic books, but many of which are contemporary science and education sites. Rusty Cashman 20:08, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I found one residual "age of mammals" and put this phrase in quotes, to make it clearer that it is a historical concept. Good work. Tim Vickers 21:13, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Second GA candidate review

message: *In the first intro paragraph, "progress was made in understanding the nature of fossils" is passive and too vague, and the work progress gets repeated soon after as well. 
*Museums and the role they have played in paleontology are probably the biggest hole in the article.  This is something that there is a lot of historical literature about.
*I would like to have seen more about the 20th century connections that grew up between paleontology and other disciplines, particularly climatology, ecology, and origin of life research.  There is also no mention of chemical paleontology.  I'm not sure how much secondary sourcing we'll be able to find for that, however.
*As a whole, the 20th century section is underdeveloped.  In particular, the role of paleontology in the evolutionary synthesis should be elaborated upon.
*Stronger connections should be made in the early sections between the specific work of important paleontologists and proto-paleontologists, and the broader context of natural history practices (especially, the collection and trade of fossils).
*In the "Evolution" section of the 2nd 19th century section, the paleontological arguments opposing evolution (e.g., those of Hugh Miller) probably bear mentioning. 
*More should probably be said about paleoanthropology, which comes up incidentally several times but deserves more emphasis in terms of being an occasional driving force in the expansion and popularity of paleontology.  Maybe it's just that a disproportionately large amount has been written about this area, but there is a lot that's been written.
--ragesoss 18:16, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have only implemented the first of your comments so far, because the rest will take some research, but I pretty much agree with all of them. Rusty Cashman 21:23, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Suggestions

message: Since the page is in good shape and reads well, these are just some tweaks you might care to think about:
1. throughout WP palaeo and paleo should be cross-linked. A page should be accessible via either form.
2. Cuvier spans 18-19Cs, but his main influence was in the early 19thC.
3. 19thC. You've left out Gideon Mantell, who is really an important figure. He was right on several issues where Owen was wrong. Deborah Cadbury's book The Dinosaur Hunters is a readable and fairly accurate account of Buckland, Owen and Mantell. Regards Lyell's influence, not only did Darwin have second and third volumes of the Principles sent out to him whilst he was on the Beagle, he actually described himself as a geologist.
4. 20thC. Although it's been all guns blazing since c1965, the earlier part of the 20thC was near stasis between 1914-1965, when mostly for political reasons large parts of the world were closed.
Under 'developments in geology' radio-dating and plates: both so very important you might expand a bit here. Kelvin date of Earth vs now, for example?
5. Cambrian explosion. You featured Burgess Shale, OK, but why not feature Lagerstätten in general, of which B.S. is a good example? 
Top 12 Lagerstätten: (*=top 5)
*Ashfall Fossil Beds Nebraska, USA 10mya; 
*Auca Mahuevo Patagonia, Argentina 80mya; 
*Burgess Shale British Columbia, Canada 530mya; *
*Chengjiang Yunnan Province, China 525mya; *
*Ediacara Hills South Australia 700mya; *
*Green River Formation Wyoming & Colorado, USA 50mya; 
*Holzmaden Württemberg, Germany 190mya; 
*Hunsrückschiefer Germany 370mya; 
*Mazon Creek Northeastern Illinois, USA 300mya; 
*Messel Oil Shale Hessen, Germany 49mya; 
*Rancho La Brea Southern California, United States 20kya; *
*Solnhofen Limestone Bavaria, Germany 150mya. *
6. You've omitted reference to pre-Vendian fossils, especially the Proterozoic and Archaean record of prokaryotes, originally identified by Walcott (I think). J.W. Schopf (Cradle of Life) is the present-day expert on these matters. Consensus is that cyanobacteria and other prokaryotes go back ~3,500mya.
7. As always, I'm a bit uneasy at too much reliance on secondary sources such as Larson and Bowler, readable as they are. Bowler is outstanding on 18th and 19thC, but weaker on 20thC; and Larson is rather too glib. Rudwick is fine in this case, because he once was a working palaeontologist, and had the good sense to stick to what he knows. In a couple of days I'll offer a few suggestions for modern palaeo references. Regards,  Macdonald-ross 14:37, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Here are some quick responses. 1. Yes, you are right, 2. You have a point and based on this and some comments Frede emailed to me I am proably going to rethink some of the sections and section headings. 3. This comment puzzles me. Mantell is mentioned in the text, in connection with iguanadon, and in a the caption of a figure take from his book Wonders of Geology. Given rageoss's suggestion to talk more about the role of museums in the development of paleontology, I probably will add a mention of his museum as well. I thik the coverage of Lyell is appropriate for this article. This is history of paleontology not History of evolutionary thought. 5. In a "history of" article such as  this  one that covers a large topic it is critical to avoid too much detail. However, something should be added about Ediacaran fossils. 6. Yes. 7. I am afraid I must disagree with you here. For history of science articles such as this one (or History of biology, and History of evolutionary thought), that cover developments over large periods of time, secondary sources by capable historians like Bowler and Larson, can provide very valuable historical perspecitive and context that is difficult to get from primary sources. Larson can be glib, but his research is good, and he has a talent for summerizing the important points, which is very important in this kind of article. I always welcome new sources. I do think that we need to be careful how much contemporary stuff goes into this article, as opposed to say Paleontology. This is a history of science article, not a science article and there is a difference. I want to thank all of you for your  feedback that will help improve the article greatly. Rusty Cashman 21:23, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Now that I check I see that there already is a redirect from History of palaeontology to History of paleontology.  Were you refering to something else with that comment? Rusty Cashman 19:26, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: some comments

message: : The following material was dumped into this article after having been cleaned out of paleontology:
===Notable paleontologists===
History includes a number of prominent paleontologists. Fossils were systematically studied in the 11th century by the Persian naturalist, Ibn Sina (known as Avicenna in Europe), in The Book of Healing (1027), and by the Chinese naturalist, Shen Kuo (1031-1095). In particular, Ibn Sina's theory on fossils was accepted by most naturalists in medieval Europe and the medieval Near East by the 16th century.
The modern discipline of paleontology begins in the 19th century, when Charles Darwin collected fossils of South American mammals during his trip on the Beagle and examined petrified forests in Patagonia. Mary Anning was a notable early paleontologist. She found several landmark fossils, in her home town of Lyme Regis.  Although self-taught, she collected and described them in a very systematic way. William Buckland, Richard Owen, Gideon Mantell, Georges Cuvier and Thomas Huxley were important early pioneers, in the field of paleontology. Thomas Jefferson took a keen interest in mammoth bones. Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh waged a famously fierce competition known as the Bone Wars in the late 19th century that involved some questionable practices, but which significantly advanced the understanding of the natural history of North America and vertebrate paleontology. Professor Earl Douglass of the Carnegie University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, opened the fossil quarry protected today by Dinosaur National Monument in Utah. Douglass' fossils are in several Natural History Museums. Meanwhile, Baron Franz Nopcsa, a pioneer paleobiologist, argued that dinosaurs might have been both warm-blooded and ancestral to birds.
Besides looking at mammal teeth and unearthing penguin skeletons, George Gaylord Simpson played a crucial role in bringing together ideas from biology, paleontology and genetics, to help create the 'Modern Synthesis' of evolutionary biology. His book "Tempo and Mode" is a classic in the field. Prominent names in invertebrate paleontology include Steven M. Stanley, Stephen Jay Gould, David Raup, Rousseau H. Flower and Jack Sepkoski, who have done much to expand our understanding of long-term patterns in the evolution of life on earth. Large names in the field of paleoanthropology include Louis, Mary and Richard Leakey, Raymond Dart, Robert Broom, C.K. 'Bob' Brain, Kenneth Oakley, Robert Ardrey and Tim White. In recent times, Mongolian paleontologist Rinchen Barsbold has done much to expand our understanding of dinosaur and bird evolution. Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago has made several important dinosaur finds in areas such as the Sahara, where fossil hunting has been uncommon.
:I have removed it because most of it is redundant with material already in the article, and the rest was unsourced. There are a couple of figures (Dart, Nopcsa, Jefferson) mentioned in this material who are not mentioned in this article and probably should be. I will search for citable sources I can find to bring them into the article proper, but I don't really see a place for a separate section on notable paleontologists. Rusty Cashman (talk) 21:07, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Dumped material removed

message: History includes a number of prominent paleontologists. Fossils were systematically studied in the 11th century by the Persian naturalist, Ibn Sina (known as Avicenna in Europe), in The Book of Healing (1027), and by the Chinese naturalist, Shen Kuo (1031-1095). In particular, Ibn Sina's theory on fossils was accepted by most naturalists in medieval Europe and the medieval Near East by the 16th century.
The modern discipline of paleontology begins in the 19th century, when Charles Darwin collected fossils of South American mammals during his trip on the Beagle and examined petrified forests in Patagonia. Mary Anning was a notable early paleontologist. She found several landmark fossils, in her home town of Lyme Regis.  Although self-taught, she collected and described them in a very systematic way. William Buckland, Richard Owen, Gideon Mantell, Georges Cuvier and Thomas Huxley were important early pioneers, in the field of paleontology. Thomas Jefferson took a keen interest in mammoth bones. Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh waged a famously fierce competition known as the Bone Wars in the late 19th century that involved some questionable practices, but which significantly advanced the understanding of the natural history of North America and vertebrate paleontology. Professor Earl Douglass of the Carnegie University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, opened the fossil quarry protected today by Dinosaur National Monument in Utah. Douglass' fossils are in several Natural History Museums. Meanwhile, Baron Franz Nopcsa, a pioneer paleobiologist, argued that dinosaurs might have been both warm-blooded and ancestral to birds.
Besides looking at mammal teeth and unearthing penguin skeletons, George Gaylord Simpson played a crucial role in bringing together ideas from biology, paleontology and genetics, to help create the 'Modern Synthesis' of evolutionary biology. His book "Tempo and Mode" is a classic in the field. Prominent names in invertebrate paleontology include Steven M. Stanley, Stephen Jay Gould, David Raup, Rousseau H. Flower and Jack Sepkoski, who have done much to expand our understanding of long-term patterns in the evolution of life on earth. Large names in the field of paleoanthropology include Louis, Mary and Richard Leakey, Raymond Dart, Robert Broom, C.K. 'Bob' Brain, Kenneth Oakley, Robert Ardrey and Tim White. In recent times, Mongolian paleontologist Rinchen Barsbold has done much to expand our understanding of dinosaur and bird evolution. Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago has made several important dinosaur finds in areas such as the Sahara, where fossil hunting has been uncommon.
:I have removed it because most of it is redundant with material already in the article, and the rest was unsourced. There are a couple of figures (Dart, Nopcsa, Jefferson) mentioned in this material who are not mentioned in this article and probably should be. I will search for citable sources I can find to bring them into the article proper, but I don't really see a place for a separate section on notable paleontologists. Rusty Cashman (talk) 21:07, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Notable paleontologists

message: Editors of this thoroughly enjoyable article might be interested in this book, which I don't see cited here. Adrienne Mayor, The First Fossil Hunters: Paleontology in Greek and Roman Times (Princeton University Press, 2000). Not saying it should be, in terms of weight and balance. Just FYI. Might be worth a summary sentence in addition to Xenophanes. Or a mention of the Romans: during his time in Africa, the general Sertorius was witness to what Mayor takes as "the earliest recorded investigation of the significant Neogene fossils of Morocco" (p. 122). Large fossils, though, seem to have been treated most often as religious relics. I was just working on a (distantly) related topic and thought I'd mention the book here. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:03, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I will investigate. Rusty Cashman (talk) 18:41, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''The First Fossil Hunters'' 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Really nice colour scheme at the top. Tony (talk) 08:49, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Passing praise