Talk:Baldwin effect

From Citizendium
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This article is a stub and thus not approved.
Main Article
Discussion
Related Articles  [?]
Bibliography  [?]
External Links  [?]
Citable Version  [?]
 
To learn how to update the categories for this article, see here. To update categories, edit the metadata template.
 Definition Evolutionary process whereby a facile ability to learn something advantageous to an individual's fitness becomes, over a variable number of generations, genetically encoded in the gene pool of a species. [d] [e]
Checklist and Archives
 Workgroup categories Biology and History [Categories OK]
 Subgroup categories:  Evolutionary Biology and History of Biology
 Talk Archive none  English language variant American English

Title

Far be it from me to be at title purist, but wouldn't "Baldwin Effect" be more in keeping with convention? Howard C. Berkowitz 19:19, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Not too far, though. I anticipated comments.
The Baldwin Effect is almost always referred to as "The Baldwin Effect"; try Google Scholar, for example. Examples:
The Baldwin Effect: A Matter of Perspective
Evolution and Learning: The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered
Bruce H. Weber and David J. Depew, eds, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003, (341 pp; $50.00 hbk; ISBN 0-262-23229-4)
The Baldwin Effect
George Gaylord Simpson, Evolution, VoL 7, No.2. (Jun., 1953), pp. 110-117.
Indeed, now that you bring it up, I think the title should read "The Baldwin Effect" instead of "The Baldwin effect". How would I go about doing that, exactly. —Anthony.Sebastian 20:21, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
I will prepare the necessary redirects anon. —Anthony.Sebastian 20:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
If only MOVEs were that simple:
  1. From the main page, click the MOVE tab. Make the target "The Baldwin Effect". Be sure to click "move all subpages". This will create the redirect.
  2. It's cleanup time. Enter "Template: The Baldwin effect/Metadata" in the search area. When you get the template, change the capitalization in the article name and ABC fields. I do recommend making ABC "Baldwin Effect The". Save.
  3. You will now get a message complaining about incorrect data in the metadata page. Click MOVE and move it to Template:The Baldwin Effect/Metadata.
  4. Now, go back to Template: The Baldwin effect/Metadata. You may have to click a redirect to get there. Once there, edit it to be {{speedydelete|no longer needed after move|~~~~}}
It's at times like this that I miss the DELETE privilege. Personally, I still think MOVE can do more damage than DELETE. Howard C. Berkowitz 20:35, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Howard, I shan't chance it. Who could do it with their eyes closed? —Anthony.Sebastian 21:59, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
I think I'd agree with Howard's original comment (but with "effect" in lower case). Our article on the liver isn't called "The liver", even though there are many books entitled "The Liver" and even though in discourse we refer to the organ as "the liver". Our article is called "Liver". The Britannica's index entry on the Tyndall effect is "Tyndall effect" (without a "the" even after a comma). The Other Place's article on the Baldwin effect is called "Baldwin effect". When I want to look up the Holy Roman Empire in my dead-tree Britannica I pull out the "H" volume, not the "T" volume. The LOC's subject heading on that is "Holy Roman Empire", not "The Holy Roman Empire" nor "Holy Roman Empire, The," even though many of the book titles under that subject begin with "The".
Now, of course, an article about transportation might be titled "Road" while an article about Cormac McCarthy's novel might be titled "The Road". But I don't understand how the Baldwin effect differs from the Tyndall effect or the Holy Roman Empire or the United States of America in this regard, even though books about them do in fact often begin with "The". Bruce M. Tindall 23:44, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
Okay, Bruce and Howard, you have convinced me, and thanks, Bruce for the lesson, and Howard, for the MOVE. I'll make it "Baldwin effect", with indirect from Baldwinism, etc. —Anthony.Sebastian