Talk:History of model organisms

message: Dear Article Author,
Greetings!  I have read your article and I believe that you should make several adjustments. 
For one, the introduction doesn't follow the instructions.  The first sentence in your introduction
should actually be the second because it states the significance of the article, although it should be reworded to something along the lines of "The significance of the history of model organisms is ..."  
The first sentence should simply state what the topic is.  Additionally, instead of simply introducing
the topic, the introduction was supposed to summarize the entire article and this was supposed to be 
done in 2-3 paragraphs.  
The body of the article should also be divided into sections.  The first sentence in the second
paragraph of the body should be eliminated.  For an encyclopedia article, it is inappropriate and you
should simply start talking about drosophila.  In addition, if it is possible, you should include the
page numbers for your first citations.  Finally, the word drosophilasist in the third body paragraph 
should be puralized given the context.  I hope that these comments are helpful.
Sincerely,
Gilbert
Lee4 21:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments Related to Paper 

message: Darwin and Mendel don't really play a direct role here, I'm surprised they are so heavily emphasized (and with Darwin's picture). I am thinking about toning them down quite a bit -- neither of them had anything really direct to do with the idea of model organisms, and it doesn't make any sense to me to consider them intellectual heirs to the idea (perhaps Darwin's interest in pigeon fanciers, but that would be stretching it a little). The idea of producing a model organism and using that as a scientific tool is distinct from the general theory of evolution and of heredity — it is quite a big leap, in fact. 
The article should probably start out with discussions of the fact that while animals had often been the subject of breeding experiments (sometimes quite systematized) it is not until the early 20th century that people start trying to establish systematic studies of heredity which lead to the Morgan group's exploitation of the fruit fly for these purposes, and then the crafting of the fruit fly into a carefully modified genetic tool (Kohler's Lords of the Fly is the obvious reference for this). I (and Kohler) consider this to be a fundamentally distinct step from the general idea of using animals as subjects in the study of heredity -- you really are using heredity in order to produce a very specific form of animal for the explicit and sole purpose of biological research. 
Anyway, if no one has objections I will probably make the above changes soon. --24.147.86.187 21:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: By all means.  This is a paper one of my students wrote, and it has a long way to go before it is an adequate overview of the history of model organisms.  By the way, I encourage you to create an account, which will increase your anonymity (by concealing your IP address) and make it easier for other editors to associate your online persona with your edits.--ragesoss 22:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Darwin and Mendel overemphasized